The Queen’s jewelry collection includes numerous diamond tiaras, but this particular sparkler has only been worn on a handful of occasions—including one of the most important days of her life. Today, we’ve got a look at its reemergence more than six decades later.
The Queen arrived for a state dinner in Port of Spain during her visit to Trinidad and Tobago on November 26, 2009. For the dinner, she wore a tiara that we’d only seen her wear once before: on her wedding day, in November 1947.
Here’s a look at Princess Elizabeth wearing the tiara following her wedding to the Duke of Edinburgh. The tiara, a classic diamond fringe, originally belonged to Queen Mary. Princess Elizabeth borrowed the tiara from her mother for her wedding day, but she didn’t personally inherit it until the Queen Mother’s death in 2002. She wore it again for the first time at this state dinner. (In the interim, it had also been loaned to Princess Anne for her first wedding ceremony.)
After inheriting the tiara in 2002, the Queen waited seven years to wear it again in public. For this occasion, she paired the tiara with a white evening gown that was embroidered with flowers and the national birds of Trinidad (the scarlet ibis) and Tobago (the cocrico).
Less than a year later, in July 2010, the Queen wore the same white evening gown for a dinner at the York Hotel in Ontario during a royal tour of Canada. The bird and flower appliques had been removed, and Swarovski crystal maple leaves had been added to the gown’s right sleeve. (For the Canadian appearance, she wore the dress with the Girls of Great Britain & Ireland Tiara, the Greville Chandelier Earrings, Queen Alexandra’s Collet Necklace, Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Brooch, and one of Queen Mary’s Chain-Link Bracelets.)
For the dinner in Port of Spain, the Queen paired the tiara and gown with diamond and ruby jewels, playing off the bright colors of the embroidered birds and flowers. She wore Queen Mary’s Ruby Cluster Earrings for the occasion, plus the Baring Ruby Necklace, which she purchased herself in the 1960s.
She finished off the look with an evening watch on her left wrist and a diamond and ruby bracelet on her right. I don’t think we know anything definitive about the bracelet’s provenance. The Queen has been wearing it for more than half a century. We discussed it previously in a post on her 2010 visit to the Middle East.
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