Worst Royal Jewels 1


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Yeah, the big space in the middle of the ears of wheat looks like an element fell out in the car and she didn't have time to put it back before she arrived.
I've got to put my two cents in regarding QEII sapphire tiara, It looks a little spare but all in all is very pretty and looks especially good against her silver hair now:) . I am not a big fan of the Leuchtenberg tiara-all the sapphires on top make it look top heavy and unbalanced imho.
 
well, good people, with regard to the Leuchtenberg tiara I agree with the above writer. The whole parure is quite stunning but I wish they had put more sapphires in the middle or lower part of it for balance. The ruby tiara of Marie Louise is a case in point -stunning. QEAII certainly proves that when you put gorgeous stonew up with QEII you have a real hard time going wrong.

We should get the noble Warren, surely he has them buried out in one of his barns somewhere, pictures of the Indian maharajas wearing all their stuff. No dumbbunnies they. In case of a revolution they just put on the family farm or should I say royal jewel collection and flew off to the Riviera. I have seen incredible pictures of these gentlemen most splendidly and outrageously bedecked. I remember one picture in which a most royal personage had on is turban and twinned all around the turban were necklaces or chains of the most massive diamonds you have have seen outside of 'granny's chips'. Then the rest of his macroscopic frame was just dripping with the things.

That is why I just loved that massive Iranian hat ornament posted somewhere or other here. Unfortunately I am a computer mongoloid and if I tried to post the things I would blow up the thread. You, see, Boris, nobody is going to give a hoot about your hair. Leave that to the women to go to all that trouble and foolishness. The George IV tiara was originally worn by George IV over his hat. With feathers I think. What do you think of feathers??? cheers. Thomas Parkman
 
Well Thomas, regarding the Leuchtenberg sapphires I agreee more with your first assessment: 'Drooling drop dead gorgeous'.
I'm glad to inform you that I consider my hair to be nobody's business but mine & my hairdresser's, but as it was you in the first place suggesting some kind of hair ornament for me (and Warren), excuse me for detecting a slight hint of ungratefulness in your latest reply as you don't seem to appreciate the mind-boggling process of very deep thinking I went through while digesting your suggestion.
Regarding feathers, I don't have the faintest interest in them and would be glad to see all of them end up on Queen Bea's hats - she needs each & every one feather which her mad hatters can lay their hands on!
By the way, as for your complaint about the Swedish sapphire tiara: I don't consider it 'top-heavy' at all - can you imagine a more stunning jewel to out-balance the tiara's sapphires than the parure's necklace? But the tiara really doesn't have a decent base. An earth-shattering desaster, really. But on one event, Queen Silvia outsmarted us all, obviously thinking of the same terrible problem, and trying to solve it by putting a diamond collet necklace around the tiara's base for more 'balance'. Here's the link from some Nobel ceremomy in the mid-80's:
http://www.theroyalforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3005&d=1046241817
Bottom line: The Swedish Leuchtenberg sapphires are indeed drop dead gorgeous, the very best around, and thus they represent everything this thread is NOT supposed to be about!
Let's get back to real desasters, and when it comes to sapphires, does anybody have a pic of the Wuerttemberg sapphire tiara which is such an ugly high 'whopper' that it would look good only on an elephant? Cheers, Boris
 
Boris said:
... and when it comes to sapphires, does anybody have a pic of the Wuerttemberg sapphire tiara Cheers, Boris
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This tiara is huge, but in "real life" it is probably spectacular.
Pic courtesy GettyImages.

The Württemberg Sapphire Parure
HRH Duchess Diane

DuchessDianeSapphires.jpg
 
I'm sorry Warren but I have to put this tiara on here, I just can't stand it. It looks like a Greek school play prop or like it was made by the same person who made those star trek poppies Queen Mrrgarethe wears.

Queen Theresa of Bavaria Tiara
 
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I think it looks more like a table centerpiece than a tiara. It is rather huge! My earlobes are aching just looking at the earrings but I must say that I love the necklace, though.
 
HRHAmy said:
I'm sorry Warren but I have to put this tiara on here, I just can't stand it. It looks like a Greek school play prop or like it was made by the same person who made those star trek poppies Queen Mrrgarethe wears.
http://www.theroyalforums.com/forums/f20/favourite-royal-tiaras-912-12.html
post#228
Click to expand...

Hmm, I actually do like the Queen Theresa of Bavaria tiara. Of course you'd need to see it on someone to tell, but I think it's very nice. It might work on someone who has hair the color and texture (although maybe not the length! ;) ) of Sisi's hair.
 
Dear Members of the Forum,

At the risk of causing yet another wonderful thread to implode (I have inadvertently already destroyed the photoshopping one, to my dismay) I must strongly dissent from the distaste expressed for the rose wreath tiara. It is actually the continuation of a style of jewelry that is thousands of years old. In ancient times the very masterful jewelers of those days made wonderful tiaras or whathave you in the form of floral wreaths or bands of leaves. So the style is very ancient. Further around 1800 and earlier it was also the style for women to wear garlands of fresh flowers in their hair. Queen Victoria had a wonderful parure built around the idea of organge blossoms. So in the context of its time it was not strange or out of place at all.

The gold work in it is really quite interesting, dare I say marvelous. I would agree with the writers in part in that I do not really care for the stone turquoise. I wish they had used something else, pink topaz or pink sapphires perhaps. I think that red would have been too strong. Finding a stone to work in the context of all that lovely gold is of course difficult. But still a striking and indeed lovely thing indeed. Pity there weren't enough pink diamonds to replace the other stones-now that would have been something.

Further most noble Boris please be assured that I intended no disparagement of your hair or any other part of your MN person. How could I disparage one who has taken my babbling seriously enough to actually read and think about it? I merely meant to imply that if you had for example that huge Iranian spinel head piece, with which you would have to wear a hat, everybody would be so stunned by the sheer gall and magnificence of it that they would not notice your hair, unless of course you had dyed it coral and had it cut into a Mohawk style haircut. Now that would be a combination indeed.

I just think it is a crying shame that men do not really wear hats anymore. And there are all those fabulous styles. We also should bring back the turban. That idea could be no more ridiculous than much of what passes for "dress" in this degenerate age. At least they would cover you up and you would not even need a tatoo to do it. Then just think of all the fabulous jewels that men could use to bedeck themselves. And they would not need to dress like women to do it, either. They never have before, why should they start now?

Of course turn about is fair play. We could have all kinds of delerious fun with a delicious thread showing off all the idiotic and tasteless things the men had been doing too. Vive la differance! Cheers. Thomas Parkman
 
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Most noble Thomas, please rest assured that I am in no way offended by your comments ever as I most enjoy your creative suggestions not only regarding my own personal headgear but also your comments in general. Your writing is just to good to be ignored and certainly deserving of a reply.
The restriction of men's jewels to cufflinks and rings (on the fingers...) these days is really a shame - wouldn't it be nice to see The Prince Consort Of Denmark for example getting the chance to wear a nice tiara of his own? I bet he would be only too happy to do so.
But, in order not to get carried away completely by Thomas' most delightful posts: Did anybody ever notice that there doesn't seem to be ONE single complete parure in the Windsor's collection if you look beyond the present Queen's reign?
With all the glitter the Windsors can come up with, to the best of my knowledge all the 'parures' QE II wears are made up of pieces designed at different times & in different styles & not 'historical' at all, thanks to the Hannover jewels desaster in Queen Victoria's time and the fact that Queen Mary grabbed anything she could get her hands on, no matter what. It's all a 'mix & match'. Most unusual compared to other Royal Houses, and qualifying for 'Worst Jewels' too, IMHO.
Is there any historic Windsor parure anybody can think of which I might miss here, meaning one that goes back more than fifty years and that actually includes matching tiara, necklace, brooch & bracelet, fabricated at the same time in the same design?
 
Warren said:
This tiara is huge, but in "real life" it is probably spectacular.
Click to expand...
The way she wears it makes it look tacky.

Here's a pic of her predecessor, Duchess Rosa, doing a better job of it, IMO, even at her age.
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i248/fraxales/Rosa.jpg

[Almost forgot, it's from an old book I have: "The Country Life Book of Europe's Royal Families, with photographs by Lichfield".]
 
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in the pic fraxales posted, I kinda like it. I would wear it. Then again, I would probably wear any of the tiaras posted in this thread if I had the chance. But then again, some of them may just be too ugly.
 
looking at this thread, what tiara (tiaras) would you absolutely not wear? Which would you choose to wear?
 
Well good people I would absolutely refuse to not wear any of them (Now did that sentence make any sense?)) The Poppy Star Trek Horror could do wonders at a Haloween party. Queen Rania's back gold (???-black???) would be great to wear for a job interview where you wanted to make sure you would not get the job. Just going through the motions, you know.
Then we have Sonja's viking cross thing. Great for causing riots in Kabul or some such and getting on the nightly news. I would agree with the business about the Luxenburg amethyst tiara, a waste of good stones.

I personally would wear Princess Gloria's two tiered tiara when seeking a bank loarn, say for a new house or new car. You could show the bank the collateral. You would be wearing it on your head. So you see where jewels are concerned, even the "worst" have their places and their uses.

As for the BRF, well yes I cannot name a single parure where everything was created at the same time. Perhaps we should turn to the MN Warren and have him dig up some goodie out of one of his barns. It is all more or less miss and match and sometimes it words wonderfully and sometimes not so well. The Oriental Circlet is a case in point. When QEII wore it for the first time she wore it with a necklace given to her by the Emir of Quatar (are my facts correct here??) and it worked beautifully. Then there is that Russian Fringe thingie that I personally do not care for at all. But others adore the contraption.

As for Queen Mary, she was in the habit of grabbing EVERYTHING she could get her hands on. But she did ususally have very good taste. And when Marie Fedorovana's hoard of Russian Imperial Crown Jewels came on the market, she went for them big time. I do not blame her in the least. She got and probbably kept the Princess Vlaidmir tiara from being sold to somebody else and goodness what would have happened to it.
So you see it is not all bad and not all good, kind of like everything else everybody has. Cheers.
 
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So much has been said on various boards and threads abut Sophie's fantastically awful wedding tiara, but not so much about the necklace and earrings she wore. Here's a refresher for those who managed to block the image from their memory.

weddingjewels.jpg


Incredibly, about a year later she actually wore the necklace again. Now that's one lady who puts her husband's feelings before her own.

Pic from Corbis.
 
Actually emeraldeyes, when I started the thread sophie's necklace was the first on the chopping block, it's absolutely horrible. That necklace is the worst royal jewel ever made IMO.:)
 
I don't know if this one of Queen Sonja has already be posted, but it definitely belongs here, don't you think? :eek:


Pic from cover
 
I like that better, but not much. I think the tiara is lovely (and different) without the crosses, btw. As how Martha-Louise wore it in the link you posted. :)
 
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Ahhh, the Wessex tiara. How could I forget? Actually, when you analize the pieces, the palmetto design is very graceful and the execution is very good. What bothers me about this tiara is the very definite feeling I get that it was not intended to be a tiara--possibly a series of brooches, dress clips, or even pieces of an earlier tiara. The whole effect is that it looks makeshift, and it's far too small.
 
I actually wish that Queen Sonja would wear the Malteser tiara as a coronet, just as Queen Maud did. I don't actually think it's terrible, but it certainly has the whole Spanish Inquisition vibe that isn't too pleasant.
 
I can get over the tiara. It's Sophie's awful necklace that gets to me. Since Edward designed it for her, I guess she would have to wear it. But on her wedding day?! It's just not a very beautiful piece of jewelry. I know pearls are expensive but the necklace looks fake, something you would make out of a jewelry making kit. (No offense to Edward :eek: )
 
As for what I'd do with these pieces if I had them, I'd honestly rather be cash poor and heritage rich. I would sell some of them, but I'd also try to ensure that I left a rich legacy. Pieces like tiaras are things best left in the family, as they are so special.
 
soCal girl said:
I can get over the tiara. It's Sophie's awful necklace that gets to me.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's really awful, isn't it? And the matching earrings are a bit worse than lackluster, aren't they?
 
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You guys, what's up with the empty spaces on Sophie's necklace? It doesn't look as though they are diamond spacers, just looks like exposed wire. Makes the whole necklace look cheap.
 
Peroxide, my dear. You can do wonders with peroxide. Although I would have thought somebody as rich as Thurn and Taxis would not be quite that uh shall we say frugal. As for the jewelry, it can only be called creative bad taste of the first order. When you have that much money and go hog wild this is the appalling result. You look like an apple vendor at the state fair or maybe one of those hags who as an act of charity sit over large tubs of water and dare the red neck masses to hit the target with a baseball and dunk them for a quarter.

But my God, those emeralds are magnificent. The misuse of such is both awful and absolutely hilarious at the same time. It only goes to prove that you may have all the money in the world and have not a drop of taste, decorum or class. Cheers.
 
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Well, good people, we should do a bit of imaginative compter jewelry creation and come up with the worst of all possible horrors. I propose the T und T emerald ruby chocker (what magnificent jewels so totally wasted-the noble princess really was a nut) put together with either the Sonja viking burn the monasteries Maltese Cross horror or with the QMII poppy star trek monstrosity or possibly throw a few poppies into the mix with the crosses. It would be a huge joke show the world that we the peasants have even worse taste than our betters (or at least some of us) if not nearly as much money to be able to act out our fantasies. cheers.
 
Yeah, I've never really been into cameos, are they even considered a jewel? Who knows, but to make a tiara out of it, yuck.
 
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