Queen Mathilde Glitters in Queen Fabiola’s Earrings to Celebrate King Baudouin’s Legacy

Last week, the King and Queen of the Belgians headed to Bruges for an event connected to the late King Baudouin, and Queen Mathilde wore sentimental earrings from the late Queen Fabiola’s collection for the occasion.

On September 19, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde arrived in Bruges for a black-tie gala at the city’s convention center. The event benefitted the West Flanders Regional Fund, an initiative managed by the King Baudouin Foundation. The regional fund supports local projects and organizations in West Flanders. The fund is just part of the portfolio of programs under the umbrella of the King Baudouin Foundation, which is named for King Philippe’s late uncle. The foundation’s mission is to “contribute to building a better society in Belgium, Europe and elsewhere in the world,” working on programs connected to fields including social justice, health, heritage and culture, climate and the environment, and education.

For the gala, Queen Mathilde wore a white jumpsuit with a dramatic cape-style overlay and a high neckline, a modern take on a traditional evening gown.

This is Mathilde’s second recent appearance in the jumpsuit, which was made by Natan. She wore the same outfit back in July for a gala dinner at the Louvre Museum in Paris on the eve of the opening of the Summer Olympic Games.

For the gala in Bruges, Queen Mathilde very appropriately wore a pair of earrings that belonged to King Baudouin’s wife, the Spanish-born Queen Fabiola. The earrings feature diamond studs, from which a pendant set with baguette and triangular-cut diamonds is suspended. Elegant pearl drops complete the pendant.

King Baudouin, who was Belgium’s monarch from his father’s abdication in 1951 until his death in 1993, was alone on the throne for the first decade of his reign. In 1960, he announced his engagement to a Spanish aristocrat, Fabiola de Mora y Aragón. The couple had been set up by a pair of trusted matchmakers–a priest and a nun, ironically–and they formed a partnership that shaped the rest of Baudouin’s tenure as king. Baudouin and Fabiola were married in December 1960, and she quickly became an active Queen of the Belgians, both alongside her husband and independently.

One of the most important tools in any queen consort’s life is her jewelry collection, and the new Queen Fabiola was showered with bejeweled heirlooms and gifts when she married into the Belgian royal family. Among her most-worn jewels was this pair of diamond and pearl drop earrings. The versatile earrings were perfect for both daytime and evening occasions, able to be elevated when paired with other gorgeous gala jewels and subtle when worn alone. Here, Fabiola wears the earrings with the necklace setting of the Wolfers Tiara not long after her royal wedding.

Here, Queen Fabiola wears the earrings with a fabulous ’70s evening gown for a state banquet in honor of the visiting President of Mexico in 1973. Instead of wearing a tiara, she nestled one of her diamond floral brooches in her hair for the dinner.

And here, she demonstrates how to wear the earrings for a day event as she arrives for one of the most memorable royal moments of the twentieth century: the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in the summer of 1981. Note that she’s also worn a three-stranded pearl necklace and wrapped even more strands of pearls around her wrist for the occasion.

Here, Fabiola again pairs the earrings with a pearl necklace, plus a bejeweled sautoir, for an evening reception in the 1980s.

Baudouin and Fabiola were not able to have children of their own, but they were like a second set of parents to their nephew, King Philippe. He remained close to his aunt until her death in 2014, and his wife, Queen Mathilde, also looked to Fabiola as a mentor and guide. Two of Philippe and Mathilde’s children, Prince Gabriel and Princess Eleonore, have “Baudouin” and “Fabiola” among their names as tributes to their great-uncle and great-aunt. It’s no surprise, then, that many of Fabiola’s glamorous, jewels, including the diamond and pearl drop earrings, are now in Queen Mathilde’s jewelry box.

One of Queen Mathilde’s earliest appearances in the diamond and pearl drop earrings, appropriately, came during a gala concert in support of the King Baudouin Foundation in Ghent in September 2015, less than a year after Fabiola’s passing.

Mathilde has also worn the earrings with tiaras that were once in Fabiola’s jewelry box. Here, in the spring of 2016, she wears the earrings with the bandeau base of the Nine Provinces Tiara, which is reserved for the use of the woman holding the title Queen of the Belgians. Fabiola wore the tiara on her wedding day in 1960.

And here, she wears the earrings in June 2018 with the Wolfers Tiara, which was one of Fabiola’s wedding presents. The tiara can also be worn as a necklace (as shown above in one of the photographs of Fabiola).

Here’s one more look at Mathilde wearing the earrings for last week’s event in Bruges. She also added a bracelet to her right wrist for the occasion. UFO No More tells us that the bracelet is an antique white coral piece from Van Cleef & Arpels.