Alexandra of Hanover knows her hats annoy people: Grace Kelly's granddaughter keeps wearing them anyway, from a knitted beanie with a bow to a Russian ushanka

Alexandra of Hanover has a signature, and it isn't jewellery or a handbag. It's hats. The daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco and granddaughter of Grace Kelly wears them everywhere, from formal events to walks around Paris - and she knows perfectly well it gets on some people's nerves. "People get upset when I bring out my hats," she wrote herself on social media, in English.

The answer wasn't an apology but a new photo. Her latest autumn-winter look: a retro check coat with a small rounded collar, black trousers, black leather boots with thick lug soles, a minimalist bag and - of course - a black knitted beanie with a little bow. A combination that sounds like a school uniform and looks like a fashion statement.

The hat isn't a fluke, it's a pattern. At Monaco's National Day in 2025, Alexandra wore a small round brimless cap, the kind that clips onto the hairstyle. In Paris she turned up in a fur Russian ushanka and a Khaite coat. With her fiancé Ben-Sylvester Strautmann, meanwhile, she posed in fur hats, matched as a couple.

Fashion commentators immediately link her to the style of her grandmother, Grace Kelly, just with more relaxed pieces. The difference is that Grace wore hats in an era when that was the norm. Alexandra wears them in an era when every comment arrives within five seconds.

Fashion has long sold us hats as a "trend" to be bought all over again every season. The knitted beanie, though, is something many in the Balkans remember from their grandmother's hands, with no bow and no label. Alexandra of Hanover wears it as a statement, and takes the criticism as proof that people noticed.

And she has no intention of stopping. The hats are staying - and with them, apparently, the people they bother.