I have been going to Royal Ascot for years but last year was unquestionably the highlight of my Ascot career when I watched the races and enjoyed a champagne lunch from a box opposite the finish line as a guest of Royal Ascot, having been invited to be an official milliner of the Royal racing week alongside such world renowned milliners as The Queen’s milliner, Rachel Trevor-Morgan and Stephen Jones.
I had the pleasure of seeing Leo Fenwick again in the box, an old pal of mine who now helps to run his family’s famous Bond Street department store, long synonymous with the best of British millinery and chicest fashion.
The idea was to create a Royal Ascot Millinery Collective featuring some of the most exciting new generation British milliners – others included Edwina Ibbotson, Harvy Santos and Edinburgh based William Chambers – working with designs by long established iconic millinery names such as Rachel Trevor-Morgan, Stephen Jones and Philip Treacy (who didn’t appear).
The idea of the Millinery Collective is to create a special Royal Ascot hat collection which is promoted and sold by Fenwick in Bond Street. I chose one of my favourite hats decorated in fragile feather red butterflies from my ‘Butterfly Collection’ which I have since expanded with some new additions for Summer 2019 as it was such a success.
FT how to spend it – / 26 May 2016
“There are fresh names too, picked in association with Jones – who also curates Headonism, the millinery section of the London Fashion Week exhibition – for their ability to make Ascot-appropriate hats. One, Lady Laura Cathcart, comes from a racing family and knows instinctively what is practical for the occasion as well as beautiful. Each designer has created a one-off piece, on display in the store, and the variety of their inspiration shows just how much thought and work goes into the design of a stunning hat….”
WOMENS WEAR DAILY WWD.COM EYE / PEOPLE – Lorelei Marfil / 18 June 2016
When asked about collaborating with British fashion designers…
“They are all so different. Amanda [Wakeley] and I did a pre-Ascot event at her flagship Mayfair store, which was all about getting London’s “social butterflies” in the mood for the summer. We served pink rose Champagne and invited mainly a society crowd. Amanda has such a great instinct for fashion. I’m working closely with Natasha Rufus Isaacs at Beulah this year as my London “showroom” is based at Beulah’s lovely chic shop on Ebury Street in Belgravia, so it’s a natural partnership. We have quite a similar vision — ultrachic but affordable elegance — and my hats complement her classic and contemporary fashion wear. I designed some funky hats for Grace’s [Wales Bonner] graduate fashion show launch that got her noticed — it was fun doing something more “cutting-edge” as millinery isn’t all about pill-box hats and mother-of-the-bride classics”.
TOWN&COUNTRY 27 April 2016
‘Lady Laura Cathcart says: “The hat I’ve designed is decorated with red feather butterflies on a black woven straw base. It evokes the spirit of the Ascot social butterfly, as well as the English summer season, when bright young social butterflies spread their beautifully coloured wings.” ‘
Millinery is a strange craft, milliners tend to spend hours alone in their studios and don’t often mingle or meet with other milliners so it was genuinely nice to meet and talk with couture artisans such as Rachel Trevor-Morgan who makes literally dozens of hats every year for Her Majesty. It must have been quite a feeling sitting in the box seeing the Queen wearing one of her own creations whilst sipping a glass of champagne.
People call you in the middle of lunch and summon you to their box or car wanting an emergency hat repair. For two out of the least three years, I’ve been lucky enough to watch the racing from perhaps the chicest private box at Royal Ascot: the Roseberry double-decker bus, (decked out like 5 Hertford Street private club on wheels) co-owned by a friend of my husband’s, Simon Davis and parked close to the winning post in Car Park One.
Not sure where I am going to be lunching this year. But living in hope of receiving a good lunch invitation in the next month or so – and not forced to picnic in the back of your car. Fishing for lunch has always been part of the Royal Ascot fun.
