Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World
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| Wikimedia Commons |
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| Chris Jackson/Getty Images |
Our coverage of Royal Ascot for the year wraps up today with a look at the jewels worn on Saturday — and a recap of all the brooch goodness HM brought us during the entire festival!
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| Chris Jackson/Getty Images |
On Saturday, the Queen was luminous in lime green. She always looks so happy at the races!
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| Chris Jackson/Getty Images |
With her outfit, she wore the Courtauld Thomson Scallop-Shell Brooch, which celebrates its hundredth birthday this year. The brooch is a legacy from the late Queen Mother. (More on its history here!)
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| Chris Jackson/Getty Images |
The woman in blue speaking with the Queen above is her granddaughter-in-law, Autumn Phillips. She wore classic pearl and diamond earrings that echo the Queen’s favorite pair.
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| ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images |
As the races wrap up for the year, let’s look at all five brooches worn by HM for Ascot 2019, shall we? On Tuesday, she donned the Sapphire Jubilee Snowflake Brooch.
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| DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images |
For the second day of the races on Wednesday, she chose the classic Albert Brooch from the royal vaults.
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| ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images |
The Diamond Daffodil Brooch, a newer addition to her collection, was the Queen’s brooch of choice for Ladies’ Day on Thursday.
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| ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images |
HM wore the sparkling Jardine Star Brooch with her pink ensemble on Friday.
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| Chris Jackson/Getty Images |
And on Saturday, we’ve got the Courtauld Thomson Scallop-Shell Brooch with her lime green outfit.
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| Ron Bell/PA Images/Alamy |
Today, we’ve got a closer look at a tiara that was worn by two British royal brides — with a radical transformation in between! Here’s a rundown of the history of the Kent Pearl Fringe Tiara.
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| Keystone Pictures USA/ZumaPress/Alamy |
Though it now exists as a small fringe tiara, this sparkler was originally a sleek diamond bandeau. Its original owner was the ultimate twentieth-century royal magpie, Queen Mary of the United Kingdom. The piece’s base features the distinctive “diamond and dot” design pattern that was a signature of one of Queen Mary’s favored jewelry firms, Garrard. From Mary, the bandeau passed to her daughter-in-law, Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent. Her daughter, Princess Alexandra, wore it fairly frequently in the late 1950s. Above, she wears the tiara on her way to a state banquet at Buckingham Palace in honor of President Heuss of West Germany in October 1958. The following year, Alexandra also took the bandeau along with her on her trip to Australia.
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| CENTRAL PRESS PHOTO LTD/AFP/Getty Images |
In June 1961, the bandeau found a new owner. Katharine Worsley wore the tiara at her wedding to the Duke of Kent, Marina’s elder son. From that point on, the bandeau remained in her collection.
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| AFP/Getty Images |
The new Duchess of Kent wore the tiara often for gala occasions, like this reception at the Palace of Versailles in December 1972. On this occasion, she paired the tiara with the diamond girandole earrings that also came from the collection of her mother-in-law, Princess Marina.
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| Ron Bell/PA Images/Alamy |
But by the late 1970s, the Kents had the tiara transformed. The diamond and dot base was preserved, but the top of the tiara was reworked as a petite diamond fringe topped by small round pearls. Katharine wears the new version of the tiara in the photograph above, taken at a dinner at the Portuguese Embassy in London in November 1978.
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| John Stillwell/PA Images/Alamy |
The tiara was later chosen as a bridal diadem by the Duke and Duchess’s daughter, Lady Helen Windsor. She wore it to marry Timothy Taylor at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor in the summer of 1992. Since then, the tiara has largely been gathering dust — the Duchess has retired from public life, so we don’t see her wearing tiaras at events like state banquets these days. Here’s hoping this one will eventually emerge again on a member of the Kent family!