On Friday, Queen Sofia received a major honor to mark a Spanish royal milestone, wearing pearls and heirloom rubies to become the fourth living female member of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
The Spanish royal family gathered in Madrid on Friday to mark the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the monarchy in Spain on November 22, 1975. During the commemorations, four important Spaniards were honored with the Order of the Golden Fleece: Queen Sofia, wife of King Juan Carlos I and mother of King Felipe VI; former Prime Minister Felipe González, a leading political figure during the transition period; and Miguel Herrero y Rodríguez de Miñón and Miquel Roca, the two surviving Fathers of the Spanish Constitution.
The King pinned the ribbon of the Order of the Golden Fleece to his mother’s jacket during the ceremony. It was a poignant moment for a woman who has spent a lifetime experiencing the ups and downs of monarchy in exile in both Greece and Spain. The decree read during the ceremony noted that Sofia received the honor for “her dedication and commitment to the service of Spain and the Crown.”
Sofia becomes the fourth living woman to be a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece, joining Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Margrethe of Denmark, and her granddaughter, the Princess of Asturias.
For the ceremony and the reception that followed, the ladies of the family wore smart daytime attire, with Queen Letizia in a skirt suit, Queen Sofia in a dress with a matching jacket, and the princesses in structured ensembles with trousers.
The two ladies of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Princess Leonor and Queen Sofia, arrived together for the reception, each with their order ribbons pinned to their jackets. Queen Sofia wore a pale pink dress and a matching jacket with subtle beaded embellishments, while Princess Leonor wore a red suit with black accessories.
With her outfit, Queen Sofia wore a pair of modern pearl and diamond earrings. These feature a stud with large diamonds set in a crescent-esque shape and white pearl drops.
Sofia often stacks numerous necklaces and bracelets together, but she meaningfully wore just one bracelet for the event: a gold bracelet with a cabochon ruby. I’ve seen speculation that the bracelet may be a remodeled version of one of Queen Ena’s bracelets.
The bracelet clearly has significant personal importance, because it’s the same one that Queen Sofia wore when Felipe was proclaimed King of Spain in June 2014. On that occasion, she also wore pearls with a diamond and ruby pendant that belonged to her mother, Queen Friederike of the Hellenes, and a pair of diamond and ruby clips.
Rubies also just happen to coordinate beautifully with the scarlet ribbon of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Princess Leonor coordinated both her suit and her jewels to the ribbon, wearing diamond and ruby earrings from the Spanish brand Gold & Roses. She and her mother have both worn the earrings in recent years, and Leonor memorably chose them for the 10th anniversary of her father’s proclamation in June 2024.
Queen Letizia also chose to wear pale pink for the commemorations, including a tweed jacket with an ’80s-inspired silhouette and a matching skirt from Carolina Herrera. The outfit was previously worn during the royal couple’s state visit to Italy last year. Infanta Sofia wore a structured gray tweed top with gray trousers and black accessories.
Sofia didn’t wear visible jewelry, but Letizia did: another pair of earrings from Gold & Roses. These are the brand’s Luzia earrings, which feature three gold and diamond stars on one earring and two on the other. Letizia has worn the earrings often during the past three years, including memorable outings on National Day in 2023 and during the recent state visit to Egypt. She finished the look with her gold Coreterno ring, worn on the index finger of her left hand.
The celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the monarchy’s restoration continued privately on Saturday. The extended Spanish royal family, including King Juan Carlos and the families of Infanta Elena and Infanta Cristina, were guests of the King and Queen at a luncheon at the Palace of El Pardo. (Do we think the topic of Juan Carlos’s recently-published memoir was brought up at all??) Also present were members of the former royal families of Greece and Bulgaria.
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