The fourth spot on my countdown of the best royal jewelry moments of 2025 goes to Queen Camilla’s forays into the Greville emerald collection, featuring her surprise appearances in the kokoshnik-style tiara and one of the necklaces from the bequest.
Queen Camilla arrived for the Diplomatic Reception, held this year at Windsor Castle, on November 18, wearing a white evening gown and dazzling emerald and diamond jewelry.
Among the pieces she chose for the event was the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik, one of the tiaras bequeathed by Dame Margaret Greville to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother during World War II.
The Russian-style kokoshnik was made shortly after the end of World War I by Boucheron. It features an astonishing egg-sized cabochon emerald centerpiece, plus six more emeralds amid the diamonds on either side. The Queen Mother inherited the tiara in 1942, but she doesn’t seem to have ever been photographed in the jewel.
Instead, the first member of the family to be pictured wearing the emerald kokoshnik was her great-granddaughter, Princess Eugenie. She borrowed the tiara from Queen Elizabeth II to wear at her wedding to Jack Brooksbank at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor in October 2018.
Queen Camilla is now the second royal lady to be pictured wearing the tiara. Its reappearance signals that Camilla is delving further and further into the vaults, and any old boundaries regarding which tiaras could be worn by which royal women aren’t necessarily applicable any longer.
And then, during the German state visit in December, Camilla gave us another Greville emerald surprise, wearing the necklace that many of us believe is the second emerald example from the bequest.
The full necklace is an interesting mixture of styles, featuring a set of luscious cabochon emerald pendant drops. Queen Elizabeth II, in her only public appearance in the necklace, wore it in that full setting. Camilla decided to leave off the drops in December, probably because they would have caught on both her neckline and her order sash.
The third spot in my countdown goes to a tiara unearthed from the depths of a crown jewel collection. Find out more here later this afternoon!
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