The Palace Just Released a Video Showing Every One of Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Ascot Outfits from 1949 to Now

Published Jun 20, 2019

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6:29pm

Queen Elizabeth is no stranger to the annual Royal Ascot (the British equivalent of the Kentucky Derby). In fact, the 93-year-old monarch is such an Ascot vet that Buckingham Palace opted to memorialize every time she’s attended the horse racing event with a brand-new montage video. Spoiler alert: She’s worn a lot of attention-grabbing hats.

The palace shared the video via the royal family Twitter account and captioned it, “This week The Queen is attending #RoyalAscot. Take a look back at Her Majesty enjoying this special week of racing from 1949 to present day.”

The video begins with a pic of the then-23-year-old Elizabeth just three years before her father, King George VI’s, passing and her subsequent ascension to the throne. She wears a white-and-black hat, a pearl necklace and a printed draped day dress.

In the next photo, which was taken in 1952, Queen Elizabeth appears to be wearing black in honor of her late father. But by 1954 she was back to her usual bright color business and looks to be wearing an all-white ensemble with black accessories. In fact, for many years forward she wore white to the Royal Ascot (however, the pictures are in black-and-white, so we can’t be totally sure).

One of our personal favorites is the pic from 1969 when she wore a mushroom-ish hat and posed alongside a young and dapper Prince Philip. Another is the snap from 2000 when she rode alongside her mom, Queen Elizabeth I (aka the Queen Mother), in a snazzy lavender number. From there, the looks got brighter in color and the hats got more decadent.

One thing’s for sure: Queen Elizabeth II sure knows how to stand out.

Lex Goodman

Cat mom, yogi, brunch enthusiast

Lex is an LA native who's deeply obsessed with picnics, Slim Aarons, rosé, Hollywood history and Joan Didion. She joined PureWow in early 2017.

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