A Vintage Dior Brooch (and an Antique Royal Bracelet!) for Queen Mary in Paris

There were a few more jewelry surprises in store during King Frederik and Queen Mary’s recent trip to Paris, including a special vintage brooch and a spectacular heirloom royal bracelet.

We’ll take today’s jewelry content from the Danish state visit to Paris in reverse, starting with the daytime jewelry worn by Queen Mary on the third day of the trip. On Wednesday, King Frederik and Queen Mary toured some of the city’s most iconic locations. Here, they sail past the Eiffel Tower as the cruise in a boat along the Seine.

Before the river cruise, they arrived at the historic Hôtel de Ville to meet with Anne Hidalgo, who has been the Mayor of Paris since 2014.

The King and Queen also had the chance to visit the recently-restored Cathedral of Notre Dame. King Frederik’s 6th great-grandmother, Joséphine de Beauharnais, was crowned in the cathedral alongside her second husband, Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1804. Frederik and Mary are certainly aware of that part of his royal heritage, as their younger daughter is named Princess Josephine after the many women in the family who have carried that name through the generations, including the French empress.

Mary wore a unique linen suit made up of a jacket and culottes for the events of the day, paired with burgundy and brown accessories. Her jewelry for the day included a pair of diamond hoop earrings and a brooch with special links to the host nation.

Per UFO No More, the brooch is a vintage piece of jewelry made by Dior in 1964. The gilded brooch is set with turquoises, rhinestones, and red glass “gems.” An identical piece was sold on Vestiaire Collective in recent months. (Could Mary have been the buyer?)

Though the brooch is largely a costume piece, its vintage styling added a playful pop to Mary’s ensemble for her final day in Paris.

Dior is, of course, an iconic French brand, and the brooch itself was made in France. It’s a lovely nod to the couple’s hosts—though I’ll admit that I was hoping to see something from the Danish Ruby Parure worn for the visit to Notre Dame. After all, Désirée Clary Bernadotte, another of Frederik’s direct ancestors, wore the rubies at Notre Dame for the coronation of Napoleon and Joséphine more than two centuries ago.

Speaking of royal heirlooms, on the night before the visit to the cathedral, Mary wore a piece of special jewelry from another Danish royal ancestor for the reciprocal dinner at Le Grand Hôtel. With an elegant black and gold coat dress, Mary wore gold filigree earrings and a nineteenth-century bracelet made of gold and diamonds.

Here’s a closer look at the bracelet, which belongs to the Danish Royal Property Trust. The jewel has a sentimental backstory: it was given to Princess Louise of the Netherlands by her husband-to-be, King Carl XV of Sweden, as an engagement present in 1850. The bracelet came to Denmark with their daughter, Queen Lovisa. The piece is both special and versatile: the diamond-studded clasp of the gold bracelet can also be worn separately as a brooch.

This is the second time that Queen Mary has worn the bracelet, which is reserved for the use of the Queen of Denmark, in public. Earlier this year, she wore it for the second of this January’s New Year receptions, pairing it with spectacular eighteenth-century diamond earrings that originally belonged to Princess Anne of Orange, a daughter of King George II of Great Britain.