The Duchess Diary

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Forget Chocolate – All I Want For Easter is a Jane Taylor London Headband (Or 8)

Hello, friends. I hope this post finds you safe and healthy (if not a little stir crazy). While we’re all doing our part by staying home, I’d like to offer some distraction in the form of headbands. Whimsically-designed, fairytale-like headbands designed by Jane Taylor London, who creates hats for the Countess of Wessex and the Duchess of Cambridge (to name a few).

Since this year there will be no Trooping of the Colour or Royal Ascot at which the royals may show off their millinery finest, it is up to bloggers like myself to showcase what these brilliant designers are whipping up. [Read more…]

Milliner Juliette Botterill Knows How To Make a Hat POP (Just Ask Eug and Bea)

We the People of the United States need to take a page from the mother country and start wearing hats on special occasions.

I’m not talking about gluing toys on a wide-brim hat and taking it to the races.  I’m talking about beautifully crafted objects of art that sit daintily atop one’s head.

One milliner who recently caught my attention does just that.  London-based Juliette Botterill worked for uber-famous designer Philip Treacy before breaking out on her own.

[Read more…]

Queen Maxima: 38 Fabulous Hats To Celebrate Her Majesty’s Birthday

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands is, for me, right up there with the Duchess of Cambridge and Crown Princess Mary.

Yes, all three women have that crucial “commoner” thing in common, but aside from that, Maxima always looks happy to see everyone, be they a small child thrusting flowers in Her Majesty’s face, or a bellhop greeting her at a German hotel.

Today, the Buenos Aires-born consort turns 45, three years after becoming Queen alongside the Netherlands’ monarch and her husband, King Willem-Alexander.

[Read more…]

Best of 2014: Kate Middleton’s Hats

We Americans are missing out on the hat game.  Since she started dating Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge has done a bang-up job of wearing the most delightful headwear to weddings and daytime engagements (Eug and Bea, take note).

One doubts that the potato chip hat worn to Zara Phillips‘ July 2011 wedding can be beat, but 2014 saw a bunch of new millinery designs that one approves of.  [Read more…]