Which of Queen Elizabeth II’s Favorite Tiaras Are Still Hidden in the Royal Vaults?

This weekend marks the second anniversary of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Over the last two years, several pieces of jewelry from her collection have reappeared on other members of the British royal family, and Queen Camilla has begun wearing three of her iconic tiaras. But which of her favorite tiaras are still hidden away in the royal vaults? Read on for more about the still-unseen tiaras of the late Queen.

Queen Elizabeth II’s jewelry collection was so expansive that we truly do not know how many tiaras she owned. She wore at least twelve of them in public and inherited even more from her grandmother, her mother, and her sister. Of those jewels, some of them (like Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Tiara and the Aquamarine Ribbon Tiara) were offered as long-term loans to other Windsor women during Elizabeth II’s lifetime. More tiaras that she owned, but never wore in public, have also appeared on Queen Camilla, the Princess of Wales, the Princess Royal, the Duchess of Edinburgh, the Duchess of Sussex, Princess Eugenie, and Zara Tindall.

But there were six tiaras that became solid favorites of the late Queen during her life, accompanying her on gala occasions throughout the majority of her reign. The range of tiaras included a royal wedding gift (the Girls of Great Britain & Ireland Tiara), two bequests (the Vladimir Tiara and Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik Tiara), a gift from a foreign nation (the Brazilian Aquamarine Tiara), an antique jewel purchase (the Belgian Sapphire Tiara), and a personal jewelry commission (the Burmese Ruby Tiara). The grouping offered her tiara options set with diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and aquamarines, allowing her to mix and match them with other jewels, gala dresses, and order sashes for white-tie occasions.

Of these tiaras, three have now been worn by Queen Camilla, while three more are waiting in the wings for their return to the spotlight. Here’s a rundown on which jewels have been worn since the late Queen’s death, and which ones are still in the vaults today.

When the future Elizabeth II married Prince Philip in 1947, her grandmother, Queen Mary, gave her a whole collection of royal jewelry. Among those pieces was the Girls of Great Britain & Ireland Tiara. The jewel had been given to Queen Mary as a wedding present in 1893 by a committee of young women. From 1947 on, it was the signature tiara of Queen Elizabeth II, appearing at countless banquets, receptions, premieres, and dinners, as well as in portraits and on stamps and banknotes in Britain and throughout the Commonwealth. Queen Camilla made her public debut in the tiara a year after her mother-in-law’s passing, wearing it for a dinner at Mansion House in London in October 2023 and again for the Diplomatic Reception a few months later.

The first tiara that Queen Camilla debuted after her mother-in-law’s passing was the Belgian Sapphire Tiara, a rare jewel that Elizabeth II acquired herself. In the early 1960s, Elizabeth recognized a need for a sapphire tiara in her gala collection–after all, the blue Garter sash needed a bejeweled companion! She purchased an antique sapphire and diamond necklace that had belonged to a Belgian princess and had it placed on a tiara frame. Elizabeth wore the tiara fairly regularly for the next six decades. Queen Camilla wore the jewel for the first time during the South African state banquet at Buckingham Palace in November 2022, and again a few weeks later for the Diplomatic Reception that December.

The sapphire tiara wasn’t the only one that Elizabeth personally added to the family collection during her reign. In the 1970s, she commissioned Garrard to make her a new, modern diamond and ruby tiara. The jewelers combined a cache of rubies given to the Queen by the people of Burma with diamonds taken from a dismantled Cartier tiara to make the Burmese Ruby Tiara. Elizabeth wore the tiara often over the years, including an appearance at the last state banquet of her reign, and in November 2023, Queen Camilla made her debut in the jewel during the South African state banquet at Buckingham Palace. She wore the jewel for a second time during the Japanese state banquet at Buckingham Palace this June.

There are still three more sparkling tiaras from Elizabeth II’s gala rotation still waiting in the vaults to be worn again. Perhaps the grandest of the three is Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik Tiara, which was given to her as a silver wedding anniversary present by a committee of aristocratic women in 1888. They asked her for input on the tiara’s design, and she pointed toward a classic diamond kokoshnik worn by her sister, the Empress of Russia. Queen Mary inherited it after Alexandra’s death in 1925, and when Mary died in 1953, she bequeathed it to Queen Elizabeth II, who wore it for the first time in public during her coronation tour of the Commonwealth early in the next year. It was a mainstay in her collection for the seven decades that followed, but we haven’t seen it worn yet since her death.

Queen Elizabeth II also inherited another tiara from Queen Mary: the versatile Vladimir Tiara, which was made for a Russian grand duchess in the 1870s. Mary bought it, along with its original pendant pearls, from Grand Duchess Vladimir’s descendants after the revolution, and she had it adjusted so that it could also be worn with drops from her grandmother’s Cambridge emerald collection. Queen Elizabeth wore it for the first time in its pearl setting for a film premiere in the autumn of 1953, and she went on to wear it in both the emerald and pearl settings–as well as with no drops at all–for the next 70 years. In fact, this was the final tiara that she was photographed wearing during her lifetime. We’ve yet to see it come out of the vaults since 2022.

The third and final unworn tiara from the late Queen’s collection of favorites is perhaps the most unique, and the one I’m most looking forward to seeing Queen Camilla wear. For her coronation in 1953, the people of Brazil offered Queen Elizabeth II a necklace and earrings set with diamonds and aquamarines. Four years later, the Queen commissioned Garrard to make a tiara to match the set, and as Brazil offered her more aquamarines over the years, the parure was expanded and the tiara was made larger. The imposing Brazilian Aquamarine Tiara was worn occasionally by the Queen in the later years of her reign. I have a feeling that Queen Camilla could really make this impressive tiara sing, and I can’t wait to see her wear it for an upcoming gala event.