Princess Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife, ca. 1905 [1]

Princess Louise [2]

We know that the piece was made by Hancocks, a London jeweler, thanks to additional reporting from the period. Ursula has excerpted reports on the wedding from the Graphic, which devoted an entire special issue to the Fife nuptials. The publication describes the fringe as being “of elegant design of alternating and graduating rays, varying from nearly two inches long in the centre to half an inch at the extreme ends.” Additionally, they call the piece “a superb tiara of lovely brilliants of chaste design,” noting, “the rays of diamonds being nearly two inches long in the centre, and graduating downwards towards the ends, while each alternate ray has a pretty tapering effect, which materially adds to its beauty” [4].

Commentary from the Graphic also connects the fringe tiara to its Russian inspiration: “The tiara is a very large one, and is so flexible that it can be bent upon the hair to suit any style of coiffure, and can also form a necklace. The design is Russian, consisting of straight lines, but the jewellers have secured considerable lightness of effect by the introduction of slender lines between the taller ones” [4]. The Illustrated London News emphasized the tiara’s connection to Louise’s parents: “The Prince and Princess of Wales presented their daughter with a beautiful tiara of fine brilliants, of elegant design of alternating and graduating rays, varying from nearly two inches long in the centre to half an inch at the extreme ends. By a simple arrangement it also forms a beautiful and graceful necklace.”

Louise was photographed wearing the fringe as a necklace on multiple occasions (including the two pictures above); she also wore the piece as a tiara. And she wasn’t the only Fife lady to be pictured in the fringe tiara. Her elder daughter, Princess Alexandra — who inherited the Fife dukedom in her own right in 1912 — was photographed wearing the tiara. In the portrait, which also includes her husband (and, ahem, first cousin once removed) Prince Arthur of Connaught, Alexandra wears the fringe as a bandeau, settling the piece low across her forehead. Whether or not Alexandra owned the tiara herself or borrowed it from her mother (who would still have been alive at the time the portrait was taken) is less clear.

Alexandra did inherit another major tiara from her mother — the Fife tiara — and then subsequently passed it along to her nephew, James Carnegie, the 3rd Duke of Fife, who also inherited his aunt’s titles. Whether the fringe took a similar path isn’t certain. If Alexandra’s sister, Maud, inherited the fringe, however, it would likely also have ended up with James. He was her only child, and he’s the only surviving grandchild of Princess Louise.

Update: The diamond fringe is now on display at Kensington Palace as a part of the Tiaras Revealed exhibition! Read more over here!

The Duchess of Cambridge on a visit to Malaysia in 2012 [1]

This week, a story published in the Mail on Sunday trumpeted that the Duchess of Cambridge was undergoing a royally-sanctioned makeover ahead of her upcoming tour of Australia and New Zealand. As is generally true with stories about Kate’s clothing, the piece quickly gained traction and was picked up by other press outlets, including Vanity Fair.

The Duchess of Cambridge [2]

Playing on the long-established tabloid trope that Queen Elizabeth II is unhappy with her granddaughter-in-law’s appearance, the story crowed that the monarch had ordered longer hemlines and more jewelry for Kate for the Aussie tour. Conveniently, that also gave the paper a chance yet again to publish photos of the duchess’s skirt flying up at inopportune moments — just to illustrate the story, I’m sure. It also gave their royal correspondent, Katie Nicholl, yet another chance to suggest that Kate’s clothes are too short, too tight, not royal enough, just plain wrong, etc., etc.

Those jewels from the Delhi Durbar Parure – a collection of Indian gems gifted to the Royals in 1911 – had been passed from Royal hand to Royal hand by Queen Mary to The Queen Mother and then to the Queen who gave them to Diana as a wedding gift. They are also, appropriately, known as the Cambridge emeralds. Now, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the Duchess of Cambridge – who wears her late mother-in-law’s sapphire engagement ring – will be packing precisely these kinds of jewels in April when she sets out in the footsteps of Diana on a tour Down Under.

Diana, Princess of Wales [3]

Because this story is from the Mail on Sunday, you knew already that there would be Diana comparisons involved. Here they’re made in terms of jewelry, especially that famous emerald choker that Diana wore as a bandeau in the 1980s (see the image at left). Although Kate has already worn some of the heirloom pieces from the Windsor collection — we talked about those here — Nicholl argues that Kate’s been told to pull a Diana and wear more jewels. She says that Kate “will be encouraged to wear the tiaras favoured by the Queen and Queen Mother.”

The main problem here is not the idea that Kate should wear more jewelry — goodness knows that I’m always in favor of people wearing more jewelry! It’s that the wrong royal is being used for the comparison. Although the media loves to make comparisons between Diana and her daughter-in-law, she’s not the example we should be following to try to predict what Kate will wear in 2014. Rather than looking to the tour wardrobe of the late Diana, Princess of Wales to try to decide what jewelry Kate might wear on a present-day tour, we should all be focusing instead on the jewels worn abroad by the Duchess of Cornwall.

As much as we all love tiaras, and while Diana and Fergie both wore them during royal tours in the 1980s, Camilla doesn’t wear them to dinners during royal tours today. (In fact, I think she’s only ever worn a tiara abroad twice: at the inauguration of Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, and at a banquet in Uganda in 2007 where the queen was also present.) If the wife of the heir isn’t wearing tiaras while on royal tours, I’m afraid we probably can’t expect the wife of the heir’s heir to wear them, either. Even if there are dinners involved with the tour this April, I think we can expect Kate’s attire to be more suited for a less formal black-tie event than for a white-tie event where tiaras are worn.

Dressing the Queen [3]

Nicholl also says that Angela Kelly, the woman in charge of the daily upkeep to Elizabeth II’s jewelry, has been asked to step in and select Kate’s jewels for the tour. Kelly is one of the most trusted members of the queen’s staff, and she wrote a delightful book, Dressing the Queen: The Jubilee Wardrobe, that details exactly how much planning goes into prepping the queen’s wardrobe. She’s clearly a busy woman — one whose duties this spring will include preparing Elizabeth II for a state visit to France in June to mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day and a visit to Italy and the Vatican that will coincide with William and Kate’s oceanic tour in April. Coordinating the wardrobe of the head of state for such important occasions as a somber military anniversary and a first meeting with a fellow head of state, Pope Francis, will take up a considerable amount of Kelly’s time.

Kelly’s involvement here would seem too good to be true — and indeed, according to Judy Wade of Hello!, apparently it is:

@LynneBell1 Sorry, Lynne, Angela Kelly has not been asked to advise Kate on her tour wardrobe or anything else. Oz tour v.casual

— Judy Wade (@Judy_Wade) February 5, 2014

I’d imagine that we’ll see Kate wearing jewelry in Australia and New Zealand much the same way that she did for her Canadian and South Seas tours: her usual low-key pieces, possibly mixed in with the occasional small royal heirloom piece. Of all of Nicholl’s claims, I’d say that her suggestion that Kate might borrow a brooch from HM for the tour could be the closest to fact, as Kate borrowed a brooch and a pair of earrings from the queen for the 2011 tour. Nicholl suggests either the Queen Mum’s ruby hibiscus brooch or Elizabeth II’s own golden wattle brooch as good candidates. But in terms of tiaras or jewels at the level of Diana’s Cambridge emeralds for this tour? Unfortunately, I’m not holding my breath!

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped still from a YouTube video; source here.
2. Photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
3. Cropped and edited still from a YouTube video; source here.
4. Promotional book cover image via Amazon; source here.