Why Queen Elizabeth Wore Bright Colors to the Royal Wedding

The Queen almost always wears brights.

And it’s likely that her granddaughter Princess Eugenie of York’s royal wedding to Jack Brooksbank this October will be no exception.

Princess Eugenie’s wedding is the second royal wedding that Queen Elizabeth will be attending this year; her first was the much-anticipated nuptials of Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. For Markle and Harry’s wedding reception at St. George’s Chapel on May 19, 2018, she wore a bright and elegant flared Stewart Parvin dress in lime, lemon, purple, and grey printed silk, which she paired with a coordinating edge to edge coat with a frogging fastening in lime silk tweed.

In addition to being England’s longest-reigning monarch after taking the crown in 1953, Queen Elizabeth has also become a style icon in her own right, with her now-signature look of bright monochromatic ensembles.

The Queen favors chic dresses with matching coats, accessorized with white gloves, pearls, coordinating hats, and lady-like handbags, but what really makes her outfits stand out are their vibrant hues — she’s been known to sport everything from lime green to robin blue and her attire for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Royal Wedding was no exception.

At the 2018 royal wedding, she accessorized her look with a matching Angela Kelly hat in the same lime green tweed with sinamay adorned across the crown with handmade lace crystals and pearls made by Lucy Price, as well as the Richmond Diamond Brooch with pearl drop. However, her bright look for the royal wedding wasn’t just a fashion statement for the happy nuptials — there was an important and practical reason for it too. According to her daughter-in-law, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, the Queen’s penchant for lively shades is to ensure that the public will be able to see her in the crowd.

In the documentary, The Queen at 90, Sophie explains it thusly: “She needs to stand out for people to be able to say ‘I saw the queen,'” she said. “Don’t forget that when she turns up somewhere, the crowds are two, three, four, 10, 15 deep, and someone wants to be able to say they saw a bit of the queen’s hat as she went past.”

A fashion moment just for the good of her subjects? Now that’s a style statement fit for a queen.