Sparkling Tiaras for the Singaporean State Visit to Luxembourg

The President of Singapore continued his state visits in Europe last week with a stop in Luxembourg, where the grand ducal family threw a grand state banquet—tiaras and all!—in his honor.

Following their state visit to Belgium earlier in the week, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam of Singapore and his wife, First Lady Jane Yumiko Ittogi, headed to Luxembourg for a state visit with Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg. Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, who will take over the reins in the grand duchy later this year, and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie were also in attendance for the banquet at the Grand Ducal Palace on Thursday.

For the dinner, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa wore a floral gown from Oscar de la Renta with the golden sash of the Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau. She wore a similar floral dress from the same designer for the New Year Gala a few months ago. On both occasions, she wore the same tiara: her favorite jewel, the Belgian Scroll Tiara.

The tiara dates to 1953, when it was presented by the Société Générale, a French bank, to Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium to celebrate her marriage to Hereditary Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg. She debuted the tiara as she posed for official portraits after their wedding, and she wore it regularly for the next five decades.

In the years following Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte’s passing, the tiara has become the favorite jewel of her daughter-in-law, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa. In recent years, she has rarely worn another tiara. The all-diamond piece combines well with a variety of jewels from the family collection. Here, during the state visit to Belgium last April, she wears the tiara with jewels from the family’s aquamarine parure.

For the Singaporean state banquet last week, Maria Teresa wore the tiara with pearl drop earrings and an amethyst bracelet, which comes from another parure of jewels from the grand ducal vaults.

The bracelet is part of the family’s suite of jewels set with oval-shaped amethysts. The bracelet can also be set on a frame and worn as a bandeau-style tiara. Here, Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie wears the bandeau setting of the bracelet, plus the necklace and earrings from the set, at the National Day Gala in 2017.

Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie sparkled in a light green evening gown, which UFO No More tells us was made by Elie Saab. The same designer made Stéphanie’s wedding dress more than a decade ago, which shared some design similarities with this dress. With the gown, Stéphanie wore the sash and star of the Order of Adolphe of Nassau, as well as a jewelry treasure from the Luxembourgish vaults: the Chaumet Choker Tiara.

Here, Stéphanie wears the same tiara for a different occasion, a banquet during the Dutch state visit to Luxembourg in 2018. The delicate lattice-style tiara, made by Chaumet, can be worn either as a tiara on a frame or as a choker-style necklace. It’s even more versatile, too: it can be worn with or without a set of grand pearl toppers. The grand ducal family acquired the piece at auction, and it’s been with them since the reign of Grand Duke Jean.

Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte wears the tiara with its pearl toppers in this photograph, taken during the celebrations of the 80th birthday of her uncle, King Olav V of Norway, in 1983.

And in this image, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa wears the tiara during a gala dinner held the night before Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie’s wedding in the autumn of 2012.

Over the past decade, the Chaumet tiara has also become a firm favorite of another member of the family: Princess Alexandra, the only daughter of Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa. She’s worn it for state banquets and galas, and in the spring of 2023, she chose it for her religious wedding ceremony in the south of France.