Princess Anne’s Festoon Tiara

Princess Anne’s Festoon Tiara (SHAUN CURRY/AFP/Getty Images)

The British royal family has an incredible wide array of jewels. Beyond the pieces owned and worn by the reigning queen, many of the other Windsor women have impressive jewelry collections of their own. Today’s tiara is one of several owned by the Princess Royal: her diamond festoon tiara.

Anne wears the tiara for the French state banquet at Windsor Castle, March 2008 (PHILIPPE WOJAZER/AFP/Getty Images)

As the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, Anne is a hardworking and significant member of the royal family. And, as such, she needs quite a few tiaras in her arsenal for the state events she attends. While Anne’s other major tiaras — including the diamond meander tiara of Alice of Battenberg and the aquamarine pineflower tiara that belonged to the Queen Mum — were legacies from her grandmothers, the diamond festoon arrived in Anne’s jewelry box in another way entirely.

Anne wears the tiara for the Turkish state banquet at Buckingham Palace, November 2011 (Dominic Lipinski/AFP/Getty Images)

The tiara was given to Anne in 1973, the same year that she married her first husband, Mark Phillips. But it wasn’t a wedding present; it was given to the princess by the World-Wide Shipping Group, a Hong Kong firm, after she christened one of their ships.

Anne wears the tiara for the Indonesian state banquet at Buckingham Palace, October 2012 (Steve Parsons/AFP/Getty Images)

Anne has worn the tiara on a regular basis since she received it, usually at events like state banquets. She often pairs the tiara with her diamond festoon necklace (which you can read more about here) and other jewels, including a large diamond bow brooch.

Autumn Phillips wears the tiara on her wedding day in 2008 (SHAUN CURRY/AFP/Getty Images)

In 2008, the tiara was worn for the first time in public by another woman: Anne’s daughter-in-law, Autumn Kelly, who borrowed it for her wedding tiara. Autumn anchored her veil with the diamond festoon for her wedding to Peter Phillips in Windsor that May. Delicate, with just enough height and enough fullness to be visually pleasing, I think this one was an excellent choice for a bride marrying the grandson of a monarch.