UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 18 JUNE 2015
Five stunning hats designed by one student promise to be the talk of the enclosure at Royal Ascot this week.
The designs of Birmingham City University PhD student Monique Lee will be modeled by racegoers including Russian fashion TV presenter and model Natalia Kapchuck.
Ms Kapchuck will be wearing the violet ‘Saint Phillips' Garden’ hat to attend the opening day. Fashion blogger Maya Williams will wear the hot pink ‘Cofton Cosmos Sonata’ piece at Royal Enclosure, while Vogue fashionista Olga Stepp will be wearing the stunning ‘Cannon Hill Ageratum’.
Owner of The Academy of Ballet Chigwell Claire Kahane and Monique herself will be wearing the ‘Chelsea Paeonia Iactifloral’ and ‘Smoke Indigo’ hats respectively. Mariko Kuo, lawyer and blogger, will be debuting a new custom made hat on the closing day of Royal Ascot.
Monique was recently commissioned to deck out gardeners from Birmingham City Council’s Parks Department. Resplendent in Homburg style men's hat ‘Alocasia Macrorrhizos’ the team scooped Jubilee Diamond and Gold Medal for their garden celebrating 300 years of Birmingham Cathedral.
Monique said, “I made my first hat for Royal Ascot Ladies Day in 2013 and it was featured in over 100 media outlets. It has quickly become one of my favourite times of year and is always a thrill seeing my designs worn at Royal Ascot, the fashion week of millinery.”
Around 300,000 people are expected to attend Royal Ascot this year. To avoid making a fashion faux pas the organisers have published a style guide for race-goers.