Queen Camilla Is a Vision in Baby Blue But Her Fab Fedora Steals the Show

First, let's look at the dress—it's an elegant baby blue long-sleeved coat dress from Fiona Clare Couture, an English designer who is one of the Queen’s favorites. With this dress, Camilla kept her accessories to a minimum: Low-heeled beige pumps, a small beige handbag and a sprinkling of feminine jewelry. All that quiet luxury pulled focus to her outfit's pièce de résistance—a white straw fedora, with a coordinating pale ribbon with a nubby texture, worn at a slightly dipped angle to frame the Queen’s face. (Camilla’s really on a roll with face-framing hats.) The fedora’s designer is London-based milliner Philip Treacy; Vogue called him “perhaps the greatest living milliner” for a long career including heady creations for Lady Gaga, Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Camilla wore the fedora on August 24 at the York Racecourse in York, England. The Queen is the patron of several equestrian organizations and is known for her love of riding (though the 77-year-old told a group of schoolchildren last year that she’s stopped riding because she’s “too old”). She's also a horse racing enthusiast—she and King Charles inherited Queen Elizabeth’s portfolio of race horses. Leaving her summer holiday in Balmoral, Camilla appeared on the final day of the York Racecourse's four-day festival to cut the ribbon opening a new complex at the track called the Bustardthorpe Development. Designed to be sustainable, including rainwater harvest tanks, solar panels and a "living roof," the development is meant to give race enthusiasts a place to drink, dine and mingle.

The day before her ribbon-cutting duties, Camilla went to the races as a bare-headed spectator, decked out in a blue suit with pearl earrings and a lucky horseshoe pin, a fitting talisman for a horsewoman. (Can I just say, blue is definitely Camilla’s color.) A pretty picture, however I'm favoring her rad hatter look in that Philip Treacy hat—and I look forward to more such styles from the Queen.