Queen Elizabeth was known for stepping out in style—and that almost always included a colorful hat. From floral-trimmed toppers to feather-covered chapeaus, the late monarch favored bold and bright styles. Some of her most famous hats were made by London-based milliner Stella McLaren, who created designs for the late queen for more than three decades.
"I've always sewn," McLaren, 73, tells Marie Claire in an exclusive interview, sharing that her needlework teacher in school told her she'd make a good milliner (“What’s that?” she replied).
After completing her millinery apprenticeship in 1966, she went on to work for other royal milliners, including Frederick Fox and Phillip Somerville, who also created hats for Princess Diana. Queen Elizabeth always kept two different milliners on hand so she could switch up her style, McLaren explains.
When Somerville's business closed in 2008, Queen Elizabeth came knocking on McLaren's door. Her personal assistant and senior dresser, Angela Kelly, called and said, “What are you going to do when Philip shuts down?” “Panic!” McLaren replied, to which Kelly said, “Don’t” and offered her a job at the palace.
"There had never been a milliner [on-site] there before," McClaren tells Marie Claire, sharing that she worked hand-in-hand with Kelly, who would “pick the fabric and shape” while the royal milliner would “go from there.” “It was always a team effort,” notes McClaren.
"Quite often it was just 'Yes, that's lovely,' but you more or less knew before you took it down to her [if The Queen would like it]," the royal hat maker shares, noting that Queen Elizabeth "didn't like pillboxes" in her later years.
Despite making so many hats—more than McLaren could even guess—the milliner never experienced any mishaps with her designs.
"Never had any blow off her head or anything," she says.
As for the embellishments, like the flowers and feathers that trimmed Queen Elizabeth's hats, McLaren reveals that some of them came from quite a surprising source.
"Angela's got a great eye for just picking up stuff," she shares. "Even if we were at IKEA, she'd pick out flowers and say, 'You're gonna use them,' and I'd go, 'Alright.' They weren't really hat flowers but I'd pull them apart and do things to them."
Along with making hats, McLaren tells Marie Claire that she also helped dress Queen Elizabeth.
"As The Queen cut her commitments down, I became her part-time dresser and traveled to Balmoral, Sandringham and Windsor," McLaren shares, calling it "an amazing experience."
"We really became close," the milliner adds, sharing that Queen Elizabeth called her a "little Cockney lady," referring to her London accent.
That was one of the reasons why Queen Elizabeth enjoyed having her around. "She liked me and Angela because we're normal, and we used to have such a laugh around her. [Queen Elizabeth] used to be really chuckling away.”
McLaren also worked on special projects like sword cases for Prince Philip and upholstery projects. One special item took her by surprise: "I did a silk and velvet chair that I re-embroidered, that was just before The Queen died," McLaren says. "She was gobsmacked at the work. She said, 'What a magnificent job you've done.'"
When McLaren asked Queen Elizabeth who the chair originally belonged to, the monarch replied, "Queen Victoria!"
"I nearly passed out, because I'm obsessed with Queen Victoria," McLaren says with a laugh. "That was just all in a day's work."
In 2023, the royal milliner received the Royal Victorian Medal (RVM) for her services to the late Queen, calling the news “the biggest shock.”
"I was so honored," McLaren, who received the medal from Princess Anne, tells Marie Claire.
These days, McLaren—who went to Balmoral one last time shortly before Queen Elizabeth's death, but wasn't there when the monarch passed—says she's still "having trouble coming to terms with losing this job as well as losing The Queen."
"It [the job] disappeared, gone with her," she shares, calling Queen Elizabeth “a massive part of my life.”
While she’s no longer working for the royal household, McLaren keeps in touch with many of her former colleagues, like her close friend Angela Kelly, as well as Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.
“She's the most normal person," McLaren says of Ferguson. "I met her first at Fred's [Fox] and she'd poke her nose in the workroom. I loved her."
Recently, McClaren made a special hat and outfit for Little Red, the doll in Ferguson’s series of children’s books for charity, to commemorate the second anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's passing.
At the end of the day, McLaren tells Marie Claire the late Queen "used to always be so grateful. She'd say, 'Thank you for being here to look after me.'"
“I wanted to say, 'I'd do this job for nothing, let alone get paid for it,'" McLaren says.
