Queen Elizabeth II’s Pearls Gleam on the Princess of Wales for a Fashion Moment

On Tuesday, the Princess of Wales was present for a major fashion moment in London, wearing a pair of special earrings that belonged to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Princess Catherine arrived at the British Fashion Council on Tuesday to present the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design to Patrick McDowell, who runs a luxury sustainable fashion brand based in London.

To celebrate the best of British fashion, Kate wore a trouser suit from another iconic British designer, Victoria Beckham, in a bright golden shade of olive green. (The shade is called “willow” by the company.)

With the suit, Kate wore a pair of earrings that are very familiar to British royal jewelry lovers: the exquisite Bahrain Pearl Drop Earrings.

The earrings originally belonged to the late Queen Elizabeth II. When she married Prince Philip in 1947, she received a collection of seven pearls, presented in a shell, a gift from the Hakim of Bahrain. She had two of the pearls set as drops on a pair of Art Deco-inspired diamond earrings. They remained mainstays in her jewelry collection for the next six decades. Here, she wears the earrings with the Girls of Great Britain & Ireland Tiara and the City of London Fringe Necklace to attend a performance of the Winnipeg Ballet in October 1951.

Elizabeth continued to wear the earrings throughout her long reign. Here, she pairs them with the necklace and bracelet from the Japanese Pearl Suite for a banquet at the Chinese Embassy in London in 1999. Her final appearance in the earrings took place at the Festival of Remembrance in November 2015.

During those years, Elizabeth also occasionally loaned the earrings to other members of the family. Diana, Princess of Wales famously wore them in 1982 for a banquet at Hampton Court Palace during Queen Beatrix’s state visit, pairing them with Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Tiara, the necklace and bracelet from the Japanese Pearl Suite, and her sapphire and diamond cluster brooch. Three decades later, in 2012, the earrings were also loaned briefly to the Countess of Wessex.

Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, made her first public appearance in the Bahrain earrings on Remembrance Sunday in November 2016, wearing them on the balcony as she watched the service at the Cenotaph.

Since then, Kate has been the exclusive wearer of the earrings. She has used them for a whole variety of occasions. In September 2022, she memorably wore them with the jewels from the Japanese Pearl Suite for Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral.

Since her recent return to regular royal duties, Catherine has worn the earrings on several occasions. She brought them out once more on the balcony on Remembrance Sunday in November 2024.

She again paired the earrings with the necklace from the Japanese Pearl Suite to welcome the Emir of Qatar to London in December 2024.

And in January 2025, she wore the earrings with a faux pearl necklace from Susan Caplan for a reception marking Holocaust Memorial Day at the Guildhall.

Here’s one more look at Kate wearing the earrings on Tuesday. She added one more big jewelry touch to her ensemble, wearing her famous sapphire and diamond engagement ring with her wedding and eternity bands.