Every year, on the second Monday of March, the member nations of the Commonwealth celebrate Commonwealth Day. In London, the royals attend a service at Westminster Abbey to celebrate the occasion. Today, we’ve got a look at the jewels that Queen Camilla has worn for the service since joining the royal family in 2005.
The Queen Consort, then the Duchess of Cornwall, attended the Commonwealth Day service as a member of the royal family for the first time in March 2006. This event is sort of a strange one seasonally—it’s early March, so everyone wants to think about spring, but it’s still quite cold in London. Camilla has generally leaned toward the “still winter” side of fabrics and color palettes, usually wearing shades of dark blue or purple for the event.
For this first royal Commonwealth Day appearance, she wore a fair amount of jewelry: diamond and pearl drop earrings, a three-stranded pearl necklace (from the collection of the Queen Mother, I think), and a butterfly brooch set with diamonds and dark blue sapphires.
Camilla’s next appearance at the Commonwealth Day service came in March 2010, when she wore a purple skirt suit with a matching hat and black accessories.
She added pearl drop earrings and some of my favorite brooches from her jewelry box: a pair of bejeweled pansies. The beautiful brooches are set with purple and yellow gemstones (likely amethysts and topazes/citrines) with a border of diamonds.
In March 2014, Camilla made a rare appearance at the Commonwealth Day service in a lighter-colored ensemble. She wore a tweedy coat dress in a creamy shade of beige for the event, plus matching accessories.
The spotlight of her outfit in 2014 was her architectural hat, with its felt leaf embellishments, but she also wore pearls and diamonds: her favorite pearl drop earrings and her four-stranded pearl choker necklace with the round diamond clasp.
She went back to her usual darker color palette for the event in March 2015, wearing navy blue and black with an interesting velvet hat and a metallic snakeskin clutch bag.
She wore her favorite earrings, with their diamond floral stud and pearl drop, plus a larger necklace from her collection. This one features four strands of pearls and a larger diamond clasp with a cross design.
Camilla repeated her purple skirt suit and hat from March 2010 for the Commonwealth Day service in March 2017.
This time around, she let the beaded collar of the jacket do a little more work, using only pearls to add additional interest. She again chose her diamond and pearl drop earrings and her four-stranded pearl choker necklace with the diamond cross clasp for the occasion.
In March 2018, Camilla wore a dark navy blue jacket with white embellishments for the service.
She picked up the light-colored floral embroidery, and the lighter shade of her hat, with her pearls, wearing her diamond and pearl drop earrings and the pearl choker necklace with the round diamond clasp.
Camilla was elegant in purple-blue velvet for the Commonwealth Day service in March 2019, wearing a coat dress with knot-clasp detailing and a matching beret-style hat with feathered embellishments.
She reached for pearls again for this particular service, wearing her diamond and pearl drop earrings, plus the four-stranded pearl choker necklace with the large diamond cross clasp.
It was back to navy blue for the service in March 2020. Camilla wore a coat dress with lace panels and a feathered hat.
She wore pearls again—the diamond and pearl drop earrings and the pearl choker necklace with the diamond cross clasp—but also a brooch! She’s worn this diamond knot brooch frequently in recent years. Two and a half years later, it would be the first brooch she wore in public as Queen Consort.
Queen Camilla’s most recent appearance at the Commonwealth Day service was last year, in March 2022. She wore a purple velvet coat dress, plus the velvet and feather hat that she previously wore for the same event in 2010 and 2017.
She repeated her diamond and pearl drop earrings for the service, and wore her gorgeous bejeweled pansy brooches again. What jewels are you hoping to see Camilla wear for the service this coming Monday?
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