The British Royal Family, ca. June 1922
"Wear Rented Gems at Court Function"
(originally appeared on 16 Jun 1922 in the Washington Post)
After this season's first court the other night, however, it was noticed that a number of jewelers shops in the Bond Street district also were open, and those who sought an explanation of these unseemly shopping hours found the gorgeously bedecked occupants of numerous closed motor cars were returning the tiaras, ropes of pearls, and other jewels they had rented for the evening's wear at court.
With inroads into capital made by income tax, increased living costs, and the almost overwhelming burden of maintaining large estates on their accustomed scale of magnificence, it appears that scores of those who for years have been bidden to court functions have lately been obliged to sell their jewels, so that jewelry renters are now become hallmarked as the "best people."