Sparkling Sapphires and Diamonds to Celebrate the Queen’s Ruby Jubilee

Our Queen Elizabeth II fashion time machine brings us today to 1992, when she attended a special event honoring the 40th anniversary of her accession—just weeks before her jubilee year became her annus horribilis.

The Queen was elegant in blue as she attended a special celebration coordinated by the Royal Anniversary Trust. A cast of thousands took the stage at Earl’s Court to perform a tribute to the worlds of British sport, entertainment, and industry over the course of the four decades of her reign.

One reporter noted, “The vast arena was transformed to produce a giant stage which, at one point, held hundreds of members of a choir, a full orchestra and cavalrymen with horses and cannons. There were dancers from the Royal Ballet, sporting heroes such as Sir Roger Bannister and Steve Cram, and songs from Dame Vera Lynn.”

But, given the headlines that had dominated papers throughout the year, many of the eyes that night were on the Royal Box itself, where twelve members of the family gathered to celebrate Elizabeth’s reign. She and Philip were joined by three of their four children—just Anne was missing—as well as her sister, Princess Margaret, and their cousins, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester; the Duke and Duchess of Kent; Prince and Princess Michael of Kent; and Princess Alexandra and Angus Ogilvy.

Notably, the Princess of Wales joined the family for the event, though there were persistent rumors that her marriage was in its final days following the publication of Andrew Morton’s Diana: Her True Story earlier that summer. Matters had gotten worse after phone calls between Diana and James Gilbey were published in August in the Sun. Six weeks after this event, Prime Minister John Major announced in the House of Commons that Charles and Diana had separated. By that time, the Queen was already exhausted by a year of scandal and tragedy, including the fire at Windsor Castle in November. All of the discipline and resilience that had helped her endure four decades as monarch were needed in her Ruby Jubilee year, perhaps more than ever.

But that night, the Queen was all smiles during the event, wearing a royal blue evening gown with a dark cape. She matched her jewelry to the blue shade of her gown, wearing the married parure of sapphires that she had assembled early on in her reign. The tiara, which she acquired herself, was originally a sapphire and diamond necklace that belonged to a nineteenth-century Belgian princess.

As she so often did, Elizabeth matched the Belgian Sapphire Tiara with the demi-parure of Victorian sapphires given to her as a wedding present by her beloved father, King George VI. (After all, her accession anniversary was also the anniversary of his passing.) She wore the necklace, earrings, and bracelet from the suite with the tiara for the performance.

Beneath her white gloves, she also wore rings on both hands: a sapphire and diamond ring on her right hand, and her engagement and wedding rings in their usual place on her left.