Worst Royal Jewels 1


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The Iranian crown jewels are spectacular, dazzling, over the top and as a result, not very wearable. I must agree that while I find them fascinating, as pieces of jewelry I don't find them that attractive so it is a testament to Farah Diba's beauty and majesty that she wore these jewels with such aplomb. She wore THEM, they didn't wear her!:)
 
You're right there - tacky or no, I have a photograph (albeit in B&W) of her wearing the first tiara at her arrival at the White House for a banquet, hosted by JFK, and if I remember correctly she looked quite imperial indeed! Soon as I fish it out from somewhere, I shall upload it!
 
Go to, Oh most noble Fraxales. I agree that the Iranian jewels are definately making a statement. Now whether or not they are hideous or not is another matter. some of them are just so blatant that you cannot but help just adore the sheer gall of it. there is one jewel, I finally remembered late last night the name, is an eight inch diamond and emerald aigrette. It is a hat ornament. It is massive and absolutly beautiful. I would wear it and no doubt get both mugged and have the little men in white coats come after me with needles drawn, but I understand these Iranians and I would't care either. That is what makes and made the imperial Farah so well, imperial. cheers. Thomas Parkman
 
Oh, most noble Amy, where on earth did you find That??? It looks like the good woman or should I say most royal personage has on two tiaras, one glued atop the other. She needs to saw or slice the thing in two like making a genoise And have two lovely jewels to wear instead of one. Cheers. Thomas Parkman
 
Amy that is horrible! It's come to the point were they dont care about its looks but just how big they can get! lol
 
HRHAmy said:
Up,up and away! Too big for my taste, they should have take this down a little bit, maybe made the sapphire at the top a brooch. This is another one that goes under the "jeweled head ornament" catagory not the tiara catagory.

http://www.theroyalforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=154031&d=1117784884
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Is that 2 tiara's in one? Thats what it looks like. Was she in a room with other royals & they were trying to one-up each other: "My tiara's bigger than yours!" :p
 
Well, good people, while poor Margarethe II is in knee surgery after her visit to Greece perhaps somebody could break into the royal vaults in Copenhagen and steal a handful of those poppy star trek things and glue or soder them onto the two hat tiara listed above. It might be hideous, It might be tasteless, it might be vulgar but it certainly would be unforgetable. It would certainly be in the running for the worst of all possible royal jewels. Cheers.
 
Dear Members:
I went through this thread for the first time today and would like to thank you for all for the good laughs I had due to your sense of humor & everyone not taking this subject TOO seriously!
I can't resist to post my personal Top 5 of the ugliest tiaras around:
No. 1: Sophie of Wessex' wedding tiara, because it has everything - the worst possible design, the worst possible setting, worn in the worst possible way.
No. 2: The Swedish 4 button tiara - four dim floodlights on very visible pieces of wire. I too dream of what a lovely tiara all 10 buttons from the two button tiaras would make in a new setting.
No. 4: Queen Elizabeth II's modern aquamarine tiara - a pseudo-Arabian nightmare of a design, wasting beautiful stones.
No. 4: The Dutch Mellorio ruby tiara - so tacky that it looks like something Mattel would put on their next 'Princess Barbie'.
No. 5: The Luxemburg Nassau 'whopper' tiara - should be hidden away in the vaults strictly as an investment.
And then there are three that are beyond comprehension & just a joke:
No. 1: Queen Margarete's golden poppies, of course. The only excuse is that she might have a very bizarre sense of humor.
No. 2: That modern prison fence made of gold on top of Queen Sonja's head. If she has any taste, the moment she received it as a loving gift from her husband the King, she should have considered immediate divorce proceedings.
No. 3: CP Victoria's 18th birthday tiara - those tiny stones would hardly be enough for a small bracelet, let alone a tiara.
I totally disagree about the Swedish Napoleonic cut steel tiara. It's most unusual but the design is beautiful. It might not photograph well, but I once saw it on television, and the setting actually allows the cut steel wheat leaves to move slightly, which looks great but doesn't come across on pics.
One last comment: So much depends on the hairstyle really regarding all other tiaras. The more eleborate the tiara, the more elaborate the hairdo should be. That's why Queen Silvia for example manages very well wearing that not-so-beautiful massive 'whopper' wall of diamonds, the Braganca tiara.The only ones who got away wearing tiaras well with short hair in recent memory are Queen Sophia of Spain and the late Diana Princess of Wales, IMO. Queen Beatrix' golden helmet hairdo hides most of her tiaras to the point of making me wonder why she bothers to wear them at all.
 
Okay, Victoria of Sweden's first tiara is just a waste of time all the way around--are there even any gems on the top of that thing? Sad.
Oh, and the sapphire carburator necklace that Maria Theresa wore to the king of Sweden's birthday gala was bizarre-I'm not kidding, It was like they slapped a huge gorgeous sapphire on a machine part and said Voila, a necklace/tiara and somebody paid big bucks for it. I yi yi! I gotta go now, I have an idea to run down to my local dump, get some car parts and start makin' some tiaras:p :D :D
Oh man am I slap happy today!
 
Warren said:
But judging by her grin, Princess Gloria is enjoying the joke. She's just displaying some of the family trinkets. :D
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Who is this princess Gloria (from which royal/aristocrat family)? . The tiara looks (more) awful with that kind of hairdo.
 
Princess Gloria was born as a Countess of Schonborn-Glachau and married to the Furst of Thurn und Taxis (who was almost 40 yrs her senior). Both are mediatised houses.
 
Thomas Parkman said:
Well, good people, while poor Margarethe II is in knee surgery after her visit to Greece perhaps somebody could break into the royal vaults in Copenhagen and steal a handful of those poppy star trek things and glue or soder them onto the two hat tiara listed above. It might be hideous, It might be tasteless, it might be vulgar but it certainly would be unforgetable. It would certainly be in the running for the worst of all possible royal jewels. Cheers.
Click to expand...

Splendid idea, Who is up for it?
Perhaps with the left over poppies CP Victoria's first tiara could be adjusted? Again might not be very nice but at least might provide something which could be seen
 
Tee-hee, I just love the 'I hate being the one to kill the thread' quote, justi!
As far as the Thurn & Taxis jewels are concerned, IMO the ruby and especially the emerald parures rival any comparable Royal ones.
The emerald one (no matter how outrageously Princess Gloria wore it in the outrageous 80's) is in fact my preferred emerald parure of them all, better even than QE II's and Queen Sonja's.
But as this is about WORST jewels, I really forgot to mention one: That laurel leaf thing frequently seen on Princess Margriet of The Netherland's head, descending towards the center instead of ascending. To me, every time I see it it looks as if she had lost the tiara's center part in the limousine on the way to the gala.
 
Boris said:
But as this is about WORST jewels, I really forgot to mention one: That laurel leaf thing frequently seen on Princess Margriet of The Netherland's head, descending towards the center instead of ascending. To me, every time I see it it looks as if she had lost the tiara's center part in the limousine on the way to the gala.
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Thank you Boris! At last we've got away from the Danish daisies; surely that subject has been done to death.
The Dutch Laurel Leaf tiara is actually quite smart; you're thinking of the Ears of Wheat tiara, which always looks like half of it is missing. The ears are detachable, but why detach so many, from the wrong area?
Here's a pic, an old scan from Point de Vue. Nice emerald brooch and earrings though.


Princess Margriet of the Netherlands
Ears of Wheat Tiara (famine-stricken)

EarsofWheatTiaraMargriet.jpg
 
Thank you Warren for correcting me: Yes, it's the Ears of Wheat tiara which you pictured that I was thinking of.
Regarding the WORST, there's yet another one that comes to my mind now: What about QE II's sapphire tiara, gift from her father? Convertible tiaras are tricky anyway, but this was meant to be a tiara only and still looks like it would make a much nicer necklace when worn upside-down.
Regarding other 'convertibles': The Swedish Queen Silvia modern gift diamond tiara looks great worn either way, so do the Norwegian amethysts worn by CP Mette-Marit these days. But, erhhh...
CP Mary's convertible wedding gift tiara? Nice neklace - but disappearing into insignificance the other way round, as a tiara.
And in contrast, Queen Sofia of Spain's rubies: Pretty tiara, but totally unremarkable as a necklace - I don't understand why she wears them so rarely either way.
Same goes for Queen Silvia's convertible Connaught ruby tiara - beautiful, but gathering dust in the vaults.
 
Yes, good people, truly awful. the thing you must admit that these contraptions all seem to have perfectly respectable stones in them. Take for instance the 4, 6 or 10 button idiocy of the Swedes. It consists of the buttons off of Karl XIV Johan's dress uniform. While I am all in favor of frugality, particularly where diamonds are conccerned this is just a bit much. Again the laurel wreath as an idea is of very ancient origin, the Greeks and Romans did all kinds of things with that and with great skill but the example above is a flop, pure and simple. But she is certainly smiling.
I must disagree about QEII's sapphire tiara. I think it looks passingly acceptable, not all that memorable but will do in a pinch. I have a partiality to sapphires. As for Princess Gloria, well, she has on a nice necklace. Just do not look up.
The marvel aboat this thread is just when you think there cannot be anymore, guess what somebody finds yet another somebody encased in jewels of highly questionable taste. No wonder we have all these republicans running rampant. Cheers. Thomas Parkman
 
In answer to Thomas Parkman:
I really enjoy reading all your posts as they show a wonderful sense of humor along with great writing talent, and now you even mention that your favorite colored stones are sapphires, just like mine?
That's exactly the reason why I keep grumbling about QE II's most mediocre 'modern' sapphire tiara - being 'partial' to sapphires myself, I hate to see a tiara that looks like some misinformed Hollywood designer's idea about what a Royal tiara should look like in a movie made in the 1950's....
...and that's also why I despair about Queen Beatrix hiding all the sapphires in her tiara under bouffant hair. A hairdo hiding tiaras can't possibly have anything to do with reducing the risk of a headache resulting from a tiara's weight! At least I feel happy for the Dutch jeweller who must profit from her unfortunate habit by having to clean the stones from all that hairspray on a regular basis.
With the Danish sapphires being just disappointingly small and set in a not-too-admirable design, this leaves the Swedish Leuchtenberg sapphire parure as the best of all of them all.
 
Boris said:
Regarding the WORST, there's yet another one that comes to my mind now: What about QE II's sapphire tiara, gift from her father? Convertible tiaras are tricky anyway, but this was meant to be a tiara only and still looks like it would make a much nicer necklace when worn upside-down.
Click to expand...
Here's another pic for Boris. EIIR looks rather smart and glittering wearing the Sapphire Tiara.
Is it time to reconsider? :)
 
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I think its a rather lovely piece actually. There's just something that captures me about it.

Love the necklace and earings aswell.

"MII"
 
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Boris said:
this leaves the Swedish Leuchtenberg sapphire parure as the best of all of them all.
Click to expand...
Could I ask of a picture, I'm drawing a complete mental blank here.

Thomas Parkman said:
As for Princess Gloria, well, she has on a nice necklace. Just do not look up.
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ROFL :D :D :D . That is all.
 
To be honest I always considered the dutch ears of wheat tiara one of the most beautiful and delicate tiara's around, very suitable for junior princesses. The thing is that the ladies should bend the tiara a bit more, like the wheat tiara of Mary-Adelaide of Cambridge, it would look much better that way. The way Margriet does it here looks much better IMO (pic: Corbis):

naamloos2.jpg




It would be a crime to change the tiara as it came from Queen Ekatharina Pavlovna of Wurttemberg, daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia. As there are onl;y 8 or 10 ears of wheat, and of various sizes, I do not think they could have made another tiara out of it (as I said, I like the tiara so I do not think it neccesairy either).
 
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In answer to justi, there are many beautiful pics of the Swedish Leuchtenberg pics in the thread 'Queen Silvia jewelry Part 1' on this board, here's one of my favorites, Nobel 1985:
http://www.theroyalforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=11658&d=1058531096
This tiara's setting is very flexible, it can be worn very wide as seen on the link, in 'regular' tiara shape or in a tight circle, looking more like a crown.
As far as QE II's sapphire tiara is concerned... oookay, it's somewhat acceptable, but IMHO QE II has shown very poor taste in choosing the designs for all the three tiaras which she has created for herself during her reign:
The sapphire one (Still looks like a nice necklace worn upside-down to me), the Burmese ruby tiara (Nice design for a 6 year old bridemaid's flower wreath only), and that gawdy horror, the Brazilian aquamarine tiara. It's a shame especially regarding the last one as she ruined the original very pretty small aquamarine tiara by enlarging it to all its current tasteless glory.
 
As usual, Warren has gone and done it and hit the jack pot again. However does the man do it, I wonder??? I would agree that the sapphire tiara is not the most sublime masterpiece in the world but the whole parure is rally quite lovely. Biut then you do have QEII along with it. I do wish they had done something more memorable with the Burmese ruby tiara but they didn't. I prefered at one time the Oriental Circlet which really is quite something.

If you have not lain your eyes on that Boris I suggest that you do so. It will definately brighten your day, but then maybe not. As for the aquamarine thing, well it grows on you, as do they all. It certainly does stand out. Maybe I am just getting old senile and weak. But those sapphires are wonderful. The Leuchtenberg parure of course is a drooling drop dead gorgeous thing indeed.

Maybe it just goes to prove that you really have to work hard to ruin the beauty of fine gem stones.
They will shine through almost everytime. Of course this thread proves that a lot of people have worked very hard.

Why must they insist on bedecking all this jewelry on women, why can't we men get our hands on some of it?? It is just not fair. I think I would look unforgetable in that Iranian diamond emerald aigrette and who knows what we could come up with for Warren and Boris. Cheers. Thomas Parkman
 
Thomas Parkman said:
Why must they insist on bedecking all this jewelry on women, why can't we men get our hands on some of it?? It is just not fair.
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King George IV had the Diamond Didem made for himself, so the precedent has been set.
The Indian Maharajas never held with the quaint notion that grand and decorative jewels should be reserved for women.
 
Yep Thomas, I've been laying my eyes on the 'Oriental' ruby tiara for years and prefer it to the 'Burmese' any day!
As for the aquamarines, they sure grow on you... and grow... and grow.
Given The Duchess of Cornwall's obvious craving for the biggest 'whopper' tiaras around, I'm almost certain that this is the first one she will grab & not let go once The Queen passes away - which hopefully won't happen in many years to come.
As for my own hair ornaments, I'm afraid I'd have to let my hair grow much longer before I consider wearing a tiara, being as delighted with elaborate hairstyles to go with tiaras as I am.
But then, the Indian Maharadjas used to wear tiaras on top of their headscarves/turbans, so that might be a solution. Thanks anyway for being so thoughtful, Thomas - Cheers, Boris
 
Marengo said:
It would be a crime to change the tiara as it came from Queen Ekatharina Pavlovna of Wurttemberg, daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia. As there are onl;y 8 or 10 ears of wheat, and of various sizes, I do not think they could have made another tiara out of it (as I said, I like the tiara so I do not think it neccesairy either).
Click to expand...

No offence, Marengo; as this thread is about personal taste, I think you could take those ears of wheat, fashion a loaf of bread with them and it would look better as a tiara! :D

Alternately, cut it along the centre and switch sides so they meet in the middle cos that gap just don't look right! :p
 
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