Ascot’s official milliner makes £8,000 hat for a racehorse

What do Kate Moss, Madonna and now a two-year-old filly called Ambers have in common?

The somewhat surprising answer is that they have all had hats designed for them by Ascot’s official milliner, Stephen Jones.

Mr Jones spent 30 hours producing the £8,000 feathery sensation for Ambers, a racehorse owned by Fox’s Biscuits, which commissioned the hat to celebrate Ascot’s 300th anniversary.

The hat was inspired by the headpiece worn by Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and was worn by an astonishingly placid Ambers on Royal Ascot’s Ladies’ Day.

Sporting feathers in this season’s hot colours of orange and purple, with poppies and corn stalks tucked into a wide brim, Ambers was the match of any Royal Enclosure visitor.

The filly, trained by Richard Hannon, is no stranger to the limelight. She was bought by the biscuit company to star in a £3million advertising campaign for the new range of Fox’s Ambers biscuits and her antics will be broadcast this summer.

This news story was first published in Horse & Hound (23 June, 2011)

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