On Thursday, the Norwegian royals hosted the first gala dinner of King Haakon VIII’s reign, with both Queen Sonja and Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra sparkling in tiaras for the occasion.
Court mourning has come to an end in Norway after the deaths of King Harald V and Princess Astrid, and the business of royalty is moving again. On Thursday, King Haakon VIII hosted the annual gala dinner at the Royal Palace for members of the Storting, Norway’s parliament. Queen Mette-Marit has temporarily stepped back from royal duties after her recent lung transplant, so the King was accompanied by his daughter, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra, and his mother, Queen Sonja, at the dinner.
The evening traditionally includes a humorous speech from the monarch, and Haakon did his best to follow in his father’s footsteps. He joked, “It’s not easy to become King overnight. Then, having 35 years of experience as a middle manager in a medium-sized public enterprise comes in handy.” He paid tribute to his Queen, and added, “I also have other good teammates with me. My father would probably have said that we compete in three classes. We have tonight’s super veteran, Queen Sonja. Then we have the junior and debutante, the Crown Princess. And then you have me, in my ‘prime.'” (The last remark included a heavy, comical shrug.)
Sonja and Ingrid Alexandra both wore full gala attire for the banquet, including the late King Harald’s Royal Family Order and the sash and star of the Order of St. Olav. Queen Sonja opted for diamonds and pearls as accessories to her sparkling gown of floral lace, wearing the full setting of (the replica of) Queen Maud’s Pearl Tiara for the occasion.
She completed the look with pearl drop earrings, a pearl choker necklace, and the Drapers’ Company Brooch, another piece from Queen Maud’s collection. Her signature gold bangle bracelets were also in their usual place on her left wrist.
Ingrid Alexandra wore a draped gown in one of her best colors, dark plum, with long white gloves. She matched her jewels to the gown, wearing the tiara, bracelets, and ring from the family’s Amethyst Parure for the first time.
The modern parure of diamonds and amethysts dates to the 1990s. In his book on the Norwegian royal jewelry collection, historian Trond Norén Isaksen posits that it was provided to the family by Garrard as a replacement for some of the jewels stolen in the infamous 1995 heist at their headquarters in London. Above, Queen Sonja wears the tiara, which is a necklace that can be placed on a frame, and its matching earrings during the Belgian state visit to Norway in 1997.
Princess Märtha Louise has also worn the tiara. One of her most memorable appearances in the set took place at the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden in 2010. She wore the necklace on its tiara frame, the earrings, the ring, and the bracelets joined together with the brooch in the suite’s second necklace setting.
Over the past two decades, though, the set has primarily been worn by Queen Mette-Marit. Above, she wears the amethysts during a state banquet given for the President of Tanzania in 2024.
Thursday marked Ingrid Alexandra’s debut in the tiara—I had guessed that it would be her second royal tiara—but she has worn one part of the set in public before. For the gala celebrating her eighteenth birthday in 2022, she used the amethyst and diamond brooch from the parure to secure her order sash.
Instead of the earrings from the amethyst parure, Ingrid Alexandra wore another pair of special royal earrings for the first time: Crown Princess Märtha’s Silver Wedding Earrings.
The diamond chandelier earrings were Olav V’s silver wedding anniversary present to his wife, Crown Princess Märtha, in 1954. Sadly, she died shortly after the anniversary and was never able to wear them. King Harald and Queen Sonja gave the earrings as a wedding present to Queen Mette-Marit in 2001, and she’s worn them regularly ever since. Last week’s banquet marks Ingrid Alexandra’s debut in the earrings, which suggests that perhaps the family intends for them to be used by the Crown Princess of Norway going forward.
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