All week, we’ve been looking at some of the tiaras that the young Princesses of the Netherlands have worn over the years. Today, we’ve got a sparkling early tiara appearance from Princess Margriet—complete with a surprise guest from another royal family!
On June 15, 1964, Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and Princess Christina of Sweden attended the opening of the Holland Festival in Scheveningen. The princesses were present for an orchestral concert featuring pieces by Dutch composers.
Though it was June, both princesses arrived for the event in long gowns and evening gloves, covered in fur-trimmed wraps for warmth.
Inside the event space, they removed the wraps to reveal the details of their gowns. Princess Christina wore a sleeveless gown with a lace overlay, while Princess Margriet wore a strapless evening gown with sparkling detail on the bodice.
Princess Margriet reached into the family vaults for a tiara for the opening of the festival. She wore a small setting of the Dutch Ears of Wheat Tiara for the occasion.
With the tiara, Margriet wore an intricate ’60s updo, plus delicate pearl drop earrings, bracelets on both wrists, and a two-stranded pearl necklace.
The tiara is made of a series of antique diamond wheat-ear brooches that were mounted on a frame in the 1950s. The brooches come from the Romanovs. They were brought to the Netherlands by Queen Sophie, who was the daughter of Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia. The tiara can be worn with four, six, or eight of the brooches set on the frame. For the festival opening, Margriet wore the smallest setting of the tiara, with four ears of wheat.
Princess Christina dazzled in diamonds and sapphires for the festival opening. She borrowed a sapphire and diamond necklace from her mother, Princess Sibylla of Sweden, and paired it with sapphire and diamond cluster earrings. The necklace can also be worn with a set of pendants, but Princess Christina left them off for this event.
Princess Christina was a close friend of the Dutch princesses, and she’d make several appearances in the Netherlands over the years. Two years later, Christina would serve as one of the bridesmaids at the wedding of Princess Margriet’s eldest sister, Princess Beatrix. By then, Christina was a very experienced royal bridesmaid: she’d also served in the same role at several royal weddings (the wedding of King Constantine II and Queen Anne-Marie of Greece; the wedding of Lady May Abel Smith and David Liddell-Grainger; and the wedding of her sister, Princess Birgitta of Sweden, and Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern, to name just three).
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