Ten years ago today, Prince Carl Philip, son of the King and Queen of Sweden, married Sofia Hellqvist in Stockholm. In the decade since, the couple have added four children to their family and served as dependable royal representatives in Sweden—with Princess Sofia capably handling the task of wearing gala jewelry. Today, I’ve got a look at the tiaras that Sofia has worn over the past ten years, from her bridal diadem to family heirlooms.
On June 13, 2015, Prince Carl Philip of Sweden married the Swedish model and television personality Sofia Hellqvist in a glittering ceremony in Stockholm. The couple had been together for five years, with Carl Philip proposing marriage with a diamond ring in June 2014. Their royal wedding was attended by the entire Swedish royal family and numerous royal friends and relatives from abroad.
With a wedding gown and veil made by the Swedish designer Ida Sjöstedt, Sofia wore a pair of diamond earrings from the royal vaults and a special new tiara. The tiara featured diamond palmette leaf designs topped with pear-shaped emeralds, all set on a thin diamond band curved into a coronet-like shape. It was a wedding gift from her new parents-in-law, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia.
It later emerged that the King and Queen had used an existing necklace from Silvia’s collection, reportedly a gift from a Thai prince, to make the tiara. They sent the necklace to a Thai jeweler, Beauty Gems, to have it refashioned into a tiara for their new daughter-in-law to wear on her wedding day.
Princess Sofia exclusively wore her wedding tiara for her first several tiara appearances as a member of the royal family, but in 2016, it was decided that the jewel needed some adjustments. The tiara was sent back to Thailand to be reworked slightly to make it more wearable and versatile. In the meantime, Sofia still had galas to attend, so she delved into the family vaults to select tiaras for those occasions. She made her debut in a family tiara for the first time at the Nobel Prize ceremony and banquet in December 2016, wearing the petite polished steel bandeau.
The following evening, for the King’s Dinner for the Nobel laureates at the Royal Palace, Princess Sofia made her first public appearance in the Diamond Four-Button Tiara. The tiara was made in the middle of the twentieth century to provide an additional option for the King’s four sisters to wear for gala occasions. To make the piece, four antique diamond buttons from the family collection were placed on a simple, sleek tiara frame.
Princess Sofia tried out a more substantial Swedish royal tiara for a banquet in honor of the Governor General of Canada at the Royal Palace a few months later, wearing the Napoleonic Amethyst Tiara. The jewel, which was originally a large necklace, is part of an extensive parure of diamond and amethyst jewels that comes from the Leuchtenberg family. Queen Silvia made the suite a complete parure by setting the necklace as a circlet on a frame.
Princess Sofia’s fourth foray into the royal vaults came in May 2017, when she joined family members in Oslo to celebrate the 80th birthdays of King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway. For that occasion, she wore the other button tiara in the royal collection: the Diamond Six-Button Tiara, which is set with rosettes that were once attached to the Swedish coronation crown.
By the autumn of 2017, the renovations to Sofia’s wedding tiara had been completed. The diamond palmette tiara arrived back in Stockholm with a fresh new shape. The previously-rigid tiara had been opened up so that it formed more of a halo around Sofia’s face.
The renovated tiara also had enhanced versatility, thanks to a new set of pear-shaped pearl toppers that could be worn in place of the pear-shaped emeralds. Sofia has worn the pearl setting of the tiara very often in the years since.
She has also sometimes removed both the pearl and emerald toppers, wearing the tiara in an all-diamond setting without any additional gemstones.
Over the past several years, Sofia has frequently delighted us by adding new gemstone toppers to her tiara, creating a rainbow of possibilities for coordinating the tiara with jewelry, gowns, and decorations. In December 2019, she debuted a new set of turquoise toppers for the tiara at the Nobel Prize ceremony and banquet.
She has also since added more blue gemstone options to the jewel. This set of briolette-cut blue topaz gems made their first appearance at the Nobels in December 2022.
Sofia also has a second set of blue topazes to wear with the tiara. These briolette-cut gems are very dark London blue topazes.
And, appropriately, Sofia brought out a set of honey-gold citrine toppers with the tiara to celebrate her father-in-law’s Golden Jubilee in September 2023.
While Sofia continues to be seen primarily in the diamond palmette tiara for different gala moments, she recently proved that she still has access to try out heirloom tiaras from the royal vaults. For the King’s Dinner after the Nobels in December 2024, she made her first appearance in the Swedish Aquamarine Kokoshnik, a gorgeous diamond and aquamarine tiara that originally belonged to the family’s British-born matriarch, Princess Margaret of Connaught.
Before I go, a couple of scheduling notes. We’ll be departing from our usual content calendar for the next week or so, because I plan to cover a range of current events soon after they happen. Later today, we’ll look at the jewels worn for the christening of Princess Ines in Stockholm. Tomorrow, there will be no Hidden Gems article, because I’ll be covering the jewels of Trooping the Colour here. Next week, it will be Garter Day and then Royal Ascot that will take center stage. If you don’t see content going up at the usual time, be sure to check throughout the day!
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