Queen Camilla walks her own fashion path at Royal Ascot – but with a touching tribute
Queen Elizabeth was famed for her bright and bold colour-blocked outfits, almost always by British designers. And never more so than when she was attending Royal Ascot, the race meeting she adored and which was made all the more fun by spectators betting as keenly on the shade of the monarch’s hat as the runners and riders.
On the first day of racing since the late Queen’s death, Queen Camilla quite rightly didn’t attempt to live up to the rainbow-hued sartorial standards set by her late mother-in-law. Instead she arrived wearing a soft cream coat and dress with a matching broad-brimmed hat. The look came with just the kind of exquisite details that the late Queen would have appreciated, with delicate embroidery at the neckline and on split pleated side vents.
Most surprisingly, her outfit was created by the French fashion house Dior, which has been the subject of intense speculation in recent days that it would imminently be signing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as ambassadors. On Monday, sources close to both Dior and the Sussexes told the Telegraph that no such deal was happening and that Harry and Meghan have merely continued a relationship with the label, which began with his mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
It’s only natural that Camilla would have wanted to look her very best for her landmark moment attending Royal Ascot as Queen for the first time. The Dior atelier undoubtedly delivered a beautifully refined look for the occasion even if it deviated from the tradition of senior royals supporting British designers. The maison can now add Queen Camilla to its long list of British royal fans, stretching back from Princess Margaret in the late 1940s to Prince Harry at his father’s Coronation in May.
While Camilla’s Philip Treacy hat and Dior outfit set her own fashion standard, she also paid a touching tribute to the late Queen by wearing a diamond brooch she also once wore to Royal Ascot. The Courtauld Thomson scallop-shell brooch was designed in 1919 by Sir Courtauld Thomson, later Lord Courtauld Thomson. In 1944, his sister, the artist Winifred Hope Thomson gave the brooch to Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) as “a mark of respect and profound admiration”. She also stated her wish that the brooch be “passed from Queen to Queen of England”.
The brooch was worn by the late Queen Mother for her 100th birthday celebrations in 2002. Queen Elizabeth II inherited the piece, described as a “scallop shell, entirely pavé-set with brilliant and with a single pearl at the centre, suspending five unequal articulated drops, set with square-cut stones ending in pear-shaped pendants”, after her mother’s death. She wore it on several occasions, most notably on Ladies Day at Royal Ascot in 2011, paired with a frill-trimmed pink coat and matching flower-adorned hat.
Ladbrokes was among the bookmakers continuing the tradition of allowing punters to bet on the colour of the Queen’s hat, a competition that once became so frenzied that Queen Elizabeth’s dresser Angela Kelly had to take special measures to keep the day’s hat choice under lock and key until the final moment. Cream had been one of the favourites for Tuesday’s outfits. Nobody, however, could have predicted that it would be worn with a Dior outfit. A rare fashion surprise from Queen Camilla.
