Ushered into Milliner's Heaven - hopefully with those hats too

The symbolism of monarchy

Besides the grandeur of royalty and the semblance of power that accompanies the office of the monarch or royalty of a country. Their presentation in public drives certain circles of opinion in terms of their appearance, their poise, their affability, their interaction and their fashion.

Our monarch in the Netherlands, Queen Beatrix has a striking persona, quite easy-going and amenable to her people, be it chatting to youth rappers or exchanging one of those bizarre handshakes of a strange sub-culture.

Friendly and approachable

The Queen is hardly aloof and offers an approachable disposition, typical of the Dutch who are not given to fussiness, they, in the entire quest for egalitarian equanimity would always defer to their royalty in terms of allowance, tolerance and exception.

The Queen’s fashion is also striking, setting her well apart from her subjects, as nothing attracts you to comment more than her hair-do and her hats.

Being one who wears hats and sometimes has to visit ones hat maker in Cologne, from time to time to prospect a new design, as one is wont to; one would be utterly distraught if that service were to no longer exist for reasons beyond the control of the hat maker.

In that sense, I can understand how the Queen must feel when she would have been informed that her milliner died earlier this week.

Those hats!!! Exactly!

Our sadness can only be tinged with a ray of hope that a new designer with a more contemporary touch would help enhance the imagery from the “frying pan” look to something more regal and better than Ascot, which was an amazing stunner.

I would not advocate seeing the same happen to the hairdresser either, but that blonde bouquet look is really now passé, the point has been made, they want the appearance of the Queen to symbolise the crown – I know a tiara, when I see one, I know a diadem when I see one – but a hat, symbolising the crown – I think we are looking for a figurative representation here – because the literal just does not cut the muster.

Long live the Queen, but those who work in the head appearance department have to go.

Pictures from top to bottom are courtesy of Expatica.com (The opening of parliament) and the Queen of England's Golden Jubilee site (The Queen at Ascot 2002) respectively.