<\/a> December 2025 Update:<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n The Princess of Wales wore the Oriental Circlet to the state banquet for the German president. This act of wearing <\/span>this<\/em> tiara means I have to revise my theory of how Queen Camilla is rewriting the royal jewellery rules. She\u2019s blowing them up. <\/span><\/p>\n This tiara has only been worn by queens. Until now. <\/p>\n It was originally designed for Queen Victoria in 1853, and Prince Albert is believed to have been involved in its creation <\/span>by Garrard, which describes its style <\/a>as an \u201cIndian-inspired design of lotus flowers and Mughal arches.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n It was originally set with opals, which Garrard says were one of his favourite gemstones. In 1902, Queen Alexandra had the opals replaced with rubies. She is believed to have worn it once, on a state visit to Germany, which could explain why it was worn tonight by the Princess of Wales to the state banquet of the German President. <\/p>\n Queen Elizabeth, later known as the Queen Mother, wore it for decades, most famously during her 50-year widowhood. Indeed, it\u2019s believed that because she wouldn\u2019t relinquish it, her daughter, Elizabeth II, finally got her own ruby tiara by ordering Garrard to fashion one from gems in her possession, including a fabulous collection of rubies from Burma. <\/p>\n Queen Elizabeth II wore it just once after the death of her mother \u2014 in 2005. <\/p>\n Now, with it being worn by the Princess of Wales, it\u2019s clear that the old rules regarding which royals wore which tiaras have been swept aside by Queen Camilla, who controls the royal jewellery vault. <\/p>\n <\/a> Original title: Rewriting the royal jewellery rules<\/p>\n The glorious autumnal weather has given way to the dreary damp cold of November. Then Queen Camilla wore a tiara that was last seen on the head of a queen in the Canadian Arctic in 1970. Yes, royal jewellery is back in the news! <\/p>\n In particular, I\u2019m intrigued by how Queen Camilla has spent the past year rewriting the British royal jewellery rules. To paraphrase Ian Fleming\u2019s famous quote from <\/span>Goldfinger<\/em>: Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is a trend. <\/span><\/p>\n When <\/span>Queen Camilla wore the Aquamarine Ribbon tiara<\/a> to the white-tie diplomatic reception at Buckingham Palace on November 19, we shifted firmly into that trend territory when it comes to wearable royal treasures. <\/span><\/p>\n During the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, the monarch gave royal relations the exclusive rights to specific loaned pieces. She had a vast collection of priceless treasures tucked away in vaults \u2014 her extensive brooch collection, which included around a half dozen different diamond bow brooches, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars \u2014 yet wasn\u2019t exactly generous when it came to lending items to other Windsor women. The result was that they\u2019d wear the same items again and again. For instance, Kate, now Princess of Wales, repeatedly wore the <\/span>Lover\u2019s Knot<\/a> tiara at almost every formal event.<\/span><\/p>\n It got to the point that royal watchers could predict who would wear what tiaras in the last years of Elizabeth II\u2019s reign. Now, all bets are off as we wait to see what treasures are found in the back of a royal jewellery vault, dusted off, and worn for a banquet or reception. <\/p>\n In the past year, Queen Camilla changed the royal jewellery rules in two significant ways: <\/p>\n Royal women are wearing tiaras and other pieces of royal jewellery that were once exclusively reserved for just one royal woman. Significantly, it\u2019s not a one-way loan system \u2014 Queen Camilla is also wearing items previously loaned to other royal women. This more flexible lending system is standard for many European royal families, who reserve specific items to worn by a queen, while the rest of their collection is shared by all royal women. Sweden is famous for its version of <\/span>tiara musical chairs<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Queen Camilla and her dressers are also exploring the farthest depths of the jewellery collection that King Charles III inherited from his mother and finding pieces that suit her style. Given how many older pieces have suddenly reappeared on Windsor women in the past year, she may also be allowing female relations to go treasure hunting. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve got so far, in reverse order: <\/p>\n November 19, 2024:<\/strong> <\/span>Queen Camilla wears the Aquamarine Ribbon tiara that was last worn by her sister-in-law, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, <\/strong>at the diplomatic reception at Buckingham Palace. Its name comes from its design: five ornate interlocking ribbons of diamonds, each of which is set with a large oblong aquamarine. <\/span><\/p>\n Nothing is known about the tiara except its rare public outings. Queen Elizabeth II was seen wearing it just once during her reign, at a banquet in Yellowknife in 1970. That Arctic dinner marked the last time it was seen for more than four decades, prompting speculation that it had been broken apart with its stones used to \u201csuper-size\u201d the Queen\u2019s already large aquamarine tiara (the <\/span>Court Jeweller has a detailed piece<\/a> on the evolution of <\/span>that<\/em> tiara). <\/span><\/p>\n Then, in 2012, Sophie shocked royal watchers when she donned that Aquamarine Ribbon tiara for a dinner in Luxembourg ahead of a royal wedding and again the next year at another royal nuptuals in Sweden. (Confusingly, Sophie has another <\/span>aquamarine-and-diamond tiara<\/a>, which is convertable into a necklace.)<\/span><\/p>\n March 11, 2024:<\/strong> <\/span>Queen Camilla wears an <\/span>unusual aquaramine brooch<\/a> that no royal watchers had seen <\/span><\/strong>at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey. The top of the brooch features a round stone set in an upside down diamond filigree heart, while the bottom section features a heart-shaped aquamarine of roughly the same size, surrounded by diamonds. The two sections are connected by a chain. Though the palace revealed that it had belonged to Elizabeth II, royal jewellery lovers could find no photos of the late monarch wearing it. Soon after Camilla wore it, <\/span>Norwegian royal expert Trond Noren Isaksen<\/a> revealed that he\u2019d identified it as originally belonging to Queen Alexandra (Elizabeth II\u2019s great-great grandmother) because he had been granted access to a photographic inventory of Alexandra\u2019s jewels. <\/span><\/p>\n June 25, 2024:<\/strong> <\/span>Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, <\/span>wears the Lotus Flower tiara<\/a> that had been exclusively worn by Kate, Princess of Wales,<\/span><\/strong> to the state banquet for the Emperor and Empress of Japan. Originally made from <\/span>jewels<\/a> taken from a wedding present given to the Queen Mother in 1923, it was worn by her daughter, Princess Margaret \u2014 who loaned it just once, to her own daughter-in-law for her wedding tiara. It hadn\u2019t been seen for years before Kate, Princess of Wales, wore it in 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n June 25, 2024:<\/strong> For the same Japanese state banquet, <\/span>Queen Camilla wears the triple-strand diamond necklace that her daughter-in-law, Kate, wore to the coronation<\/strong>. The Diamond Festoon necklace was made of loose diamonds in 1950 and has since been worn by queens until Kate wore it at the coronation of Charles III in 2023. The necklace can be seen <\/span>in official portraits taken by Hugo Burnand<\/a>. Then, Queen Camilla wore it to the 2024 banquet. <\/span><\/p>\n December 5, 2023:<\/strong> <\/span>Queen Camilla <\/span>wore a massive, ornate diamond stomacher<\/a> that originally belonged to the Queen Mother<\/span><\/strong> at the diplomatic reception at Buckingham Palace. The intricately tasseled stomacher (named because they were so large they covered the front of a lady\u2019s dress) is a <\/span>mystery to royal watchers<\/a> as no photos have emerged of the Queen Mother wearing it, and it doesn\u2019t match anything given to her for her wedding. <\/span><\/p>\n November 22, 2023:<\/strong> At last November\u2019s <\/span>state banquet for the South Korean president at Buckingham Palace<\/a>, <\/span>Kate, Princess of Wales, wears a diamond tiara that hadn\u2019t been seen in public for nine decades.<\/strong> The Strathmore tiara is a diamond garland of wild roses. It was a wedding gift in 1923 for the future Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother from her father, and hadn\u2019t been seen since her husband became monarch in 1936. <\/span><\/p>\n No one was absolutely sure it was <\/span>still<\/em> in royal hands until a new image of that Strathmore tiara appeared in Geoffrey Munn\u2019s authoritative book about tiaras in 2001 and it <\/span>appeared at a 2002 Victoria and Albert Museum tiara exhibition<\/a>. Even then, it took another 11 years before it was again worn by a royal woman.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/a> November 22, 2023:<\/strong> At that same state dinner, the Duchess of Gloucester wears an Art Deco emerald-and-diamond tiara that originally belonged to her mother-in-law, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and which hadn\u2019t been seen in years (over the years, she has <\/span>worn parts of the tiara<\/a>, which like others of that age, can come apart into brooches, clips, etc.) Note: this doesn\u2019t really fit the borrowing\/pool trend, but its return is still timely.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/span>November 12, 2023:<\/strong> <\/span>Kate wears an <\/span>ornate pair of pearl-and-diamond earrings<\/a> that Elizabeth II wore once in 2003<\/span><\/strong> at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nigeria. Kate wore what may be the matching brooch in 2017, nearly two decades after Elizabeth II wore it for what is believed to be the only time during a trip to South Korea in 1999. Kate would <\/span>wear the brooch again<\/a> at the lying-in-state of the late Queen in September 2022. <\/span><\/p>\n March 29, 2023:<\/strong> <\/span>Queen Camilla <\/span>wears a turquoise brooch<\/a> given to then-Princess Elizabeth as a confirmation present<\/span><\/strong> from her grandmother, Queen Mary, in 1942. The small flower brooch has five turquoise petals, each outlined with diamonds, with a turquoise centre. Elizabeth II never wore it in public, as far as can be discerned. The only details came from palace officials who briefed reporters after Queen Camilla wore it at the start of a state visit to Germany. <\/span><\/p>\n On Tuesday, December 3, there will be another state banquet at Buckingham Palace for the Amir of Qatar. We\u2019re bound to see a large turnout of royals, and they will be wearing historic royal jewels. But which ones? <\/p>\n I\u2019m prepping for my annual year-end royal statistics roundups. It\u2019s been an unusual year, which means there\u2019s more than usual to talk about.<\/p>\n I\u2019m mulling an Advent calendar of royal statistics, meaning a post a day from December 1 to December 24. Each would be much shorter than my usual weekly newsletter. <\/p>\n But that flurry of arrivals into your inboxes may be way too much for some readers, so I\u2019m asking for your opinion \u2014 how many year-end royal statistic posts should I publish? <\/p>\n My latest appearance on Global TV\u2019s <\/span>The Morning Show<\/a> on November 18: <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!WRy2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfdb1710-bc6f-478a-a915-7645a8f85e8b_1638x2048.jpeg\")
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