The Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara was made by Garrard in November 1913 for Queen Mary. The design was to copy that of a tiara which had been owned by Mary’s grandmother, Princess Augusta of Hesse who was married to the Duke of Cambridge. Augusta of Hesse’s tiara had been made to a neo-classical design in early nineteenth century and was a popular design of the period with at least five known tiaras still in existence of a similar pattern. image She gave the tiara to her daughter, Augusta, when she married the Grand Duke of Mecklenberg-Strelitz in 1843. image
Queen Mary made the new tiara from diamonds and pearls she had in her private collection many of which she received as a wedding present. Mary had the tiara made with a base row of diamonds with nineteen diamond bow and knot ribbon design where pearl drops hang. image The tiara in its original form also had a row of upright pearls. image (1926) In 1935, Queen Mary choose to have the upright pearls removed from the tiara and she continued to wear it without them for the remainder of her life. image Today, the tiara remains without the upright pearls.
From the TRF avatar collection
From the TRF avatar collection
Queen Mary left the tiara to her granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth, in her will in 1953. The Queen wore the tiara on a few occasions during the Fifties. image However in 1981, she gave the tiara as a wedding present to her daughter-in-law the Princess of Wales. image Diana, choose not to wear the tiara on her wedding day and its first wearing as to the Opening of Parliament in November 1981. Diana found the tiara heavy and it gave her headaches so she only wore it a few times to the most official of functions image (Australia 1983) or state visits. The Princess also wore the tiara in a number of photo shoots image (1987) and image (Vogue 1991) Following Diana’s death the tiara was returned to the royal vaults.
PrincessofEurope British Royals Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara, Jewellery, Tiaras
Click the image to see the photo at the BBC website
On 6th May 1960, Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong-Jones in Westminster Abbey. It was the first-ever televised royal wedding with estimates of over 300 million people watching the event worldwide. The Princess chose one of her favourite designers, Norman Hartnell, to design her wedding dress. Hartnell was also a favourite of the Queen and the Queen Mother and had been responsible for the Coronation dresses and Princess Elizabeth’s wedding dress. However his creation for Margaret in 1960 was remarkably different from his other designs. At Princess Margaret’s request, the design was kept simple with no lace or sequins. image , image The dress of white silk organza had a striking high neckline and tight-fitted bodice. image Unlike previous wedding dresses there was no separate court train; instead the skirt itself formed a short train. image The simple veil was made by Claude St Cyr of Paris and the only detail was the piping on the trim to match the dress. image
The veil was held in place with the stunning Poltimore tiara which had been purchased for Princess Margaret at auction prior to her wedding for over £5000. For the wedding day Margaret’s hairdresser styled her hair with a hairpiece to add height. The Poltimore tiara was made by Garrard in 1870 for Lady Poltimore. It could be transformed into a fringe necklace and eleven brooches. image The Princess was seen wearing the tiara in the form of the necklace prior to her wedding and continued to wear the piece in its various forms on many state occasions. The tiara was sold in 2006 at an auction in Christie’s along with many other pieces from her jewellery collection. It sold to a private collector for about £1 million. On her wedding day, Margaret also wore Queen Mary’s diamond riviere which she had inherited after her grandmother’s death in 1953. It became one of her signature pieces and was sold for nealy £1 million at the 2006 auction. image , image
Hartnell also designed the dresses for the eight bridesmaids, including Princess Anne. The dresses were specifically made to replicate Margaret’s first evening dress which had been a favourite of her late father, King George VI. They were frilly with insets of broderie anglaise and trimmed with blue ribbon. image , image
More infomation and pictures of the wedding can be found in this thread. Second photo is from the Royal Forums avatar collection.
PrincessofEurope British Royals Fashion, Princess Margaret, Tiaras, Wedding
Liberace eat your heart out! That must be what Beatrix, Silvia and Máxima spoke about on the telephone when deciding what to wear for the state visit which is currently underway between the two nations. All three women have brought elegance and glitz to the visit, which began yesterday morning when Queen Beatrix greeted King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia at the airport in Rotterdam.
Click to see more from Koninklijkhuis
After a exchange of greetings, and Queen Silvia almost losing her hat!, the trio headed off to Noordeinde Palace in The Hague for the official welcoming ceremony and an inspection of the Dutch guard. The welcoming kicked off an afternoon schedule packed with events for the visitors, whose first stop was the National Monument at Amsterdam’s Dam Square. Here, the King and Queen laid the customary wreath in memory of fallen servicemen and women. From there, Carl and Silvia parted ways and headed off to undertake solo engagements. The pair later met up in Kudelstaart where they visited a work-experience project. Read more…
JessRulz Dutch Royals, Swedish Royals Carl XVI Gustaf, Prince of Orange, Princess Margriet, Princess Máxima, Prof. Pieter van Vollenhoven, Queen Beatrix, Queen Silvia, State Visit, Tiaras
The Shell Tiara, by Mellerio
The Shell Tiara, made of platinum and diamonds forming shells with pear-shaped pearls dangling from their centres, dates back to Queen Isabella II who offered it to her daughter Infanta Maria Isabel on the occasion of her wedding to Prince Gaetano of Bourbon-Two Sicilies in 1868. The Shell Tiara was inherited by her nephew King Alfonso XIII who passed it on to his son Don Juan, Count of Barcelona. He offered the Shell Tiara to his son Don Juan Carlos on the occasion of his wedding to Princess Sofía in 1962.
The Fleur-De-Lys Tiara, by Ansorena
The Fleur-De-Lys Tiara, made of platinum and diamonds forming the Fleur-De-Lys, the heraldic emblem of the House of Bourbon, dates back to King Alfonso XIII who offered it to his bride Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, later known as Queen Ena, as a wedding gift in 1906. The Fleur-De-Lys Tiara is said to be the most cherished tiara of The Royal Family of Spain and only passes on from Queen to Queen.
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Duke of Marmalade Spanish Royals Jewellery, Princess Letizia, Princess of Asturias, Queen Sofia, Tiaras
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha loved to design jewellery for his wife, Queen Victoria. Throughout their marriage he designed a number of key pieces which naturally became some of the most treasured possessions of Victoria. Of these jewels, Albert designed at least four tiaras for Victoria to wear – two of these were the diamond and emerald tiara and the sapphire and diamond tiara. Victoria gifted many of jewels to her numerous children and grandchildren throughout her life as well as placing some key items into the hands of the state to ensure that they would remain in the possession of future monarchs. However both the emerald and sapphire tiaras never became part of the Crown jewels collection and today are no longer with the British Royal Family.
Today, the emerald and diamond tiara exists intact in a private collection of a descendant of Queen Victoria’s. It was loaned out for an exhibition at Wartski in 1997 but recent reports that the tiara might have been either sold or dismantled circulate.
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PrincessofEurope British Royals, Historical Royals Jewellery, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Queen Victoria, Tiaras
One of Queen Elizabeth’s favourite pieces of jewellery is the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara which is also referred to as “Granny’s Tiara”. 
It was a wedding gift to Elizabeth by her devoted grandmother Queen Mary in 1947 along with a number of other pieces. However the tiara had originally been given to Princess Mary of Teck (later Queen Mary) as a wedding present in 1893 by a committee started by Lady Eve Greville. The committee was established to raise money to purchase a wedding gift from the ‘Girls of Great Britain and Ireland’. They collected over £5,000 and bought the diamond tiara from Garrard.
In the original form (1893) the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara was in a diamond festoon and scroll design with nine large upright pearls on diamond spikes. This was set on a diamond lozenge patterned bandeau base. image1 (the Duchess of York, later Queen Mary, wearing the tiara in the original form c1893) image2 The tiara could also be worn as a necklace.
The tiara was altered in 1914 when Queen Mary choose to remove the upright pearls and replaced them with large diamonds. At this stage the bandeau base was also removed thus allowing her to use this as a headband following the styles of the 1920s. image3
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PrincessofEurope British Royals Granny's Tiara, Great Britain and Ireland Tiara, Jewellery, Queen Mary, Tiaras
