Balmoral Bonnet Bow

[Peter Crowe]

Advice I remember from my question was having a florist tie me a separate bow and then just sew it on. Possibility for ya?

If your balmoral as the navy/black ones do comes with the ribbons hanging down, and no space (like on a glengarry) where a bow was pre-tied, this is the way to go. Untie the lot, make a bow and stitch into place. I personally prefer a small neat and tight bow which is unobtrusive. I do prefer, however not to dispense with the bow altogether as it (along with the torrie, grossgrain ribbon, and cockade sets a balmoral apart from a beret.

Having said all of that the best balmoral I ever owned was a slightly smaller Mackie balmoral (6 3/4 rather than a 6 7/8) in fawn with the bow pre-tied (with gap), on which I simply retied a tighter bow and trimmed off the excess before putting in a couple of stitches to hold it tight. Unfortunately I lost it in a flitting some years ago, and have never got round to replacing it. These days (weather permitting) I prefer to be bare headed anyway.