The pre-wedding gala dinner in Luxembourg was great, wasn’t it? Of the night’s tiara surprises, the new-to-her tiara on the Countess of Wessex seems to have caused the most widespread confusion, so we’ll try to tackle that today. I’m calling it the Five Aquamarine Tiara, a name which is totally boring but conveys about all that we know for certain about this tiara: that it currently features five aquamarines set in a diamond surround. (It also differentiates this tiara from some of the other aquamarine tiaras in the family, which is key because this is about to get confusing.)
The Five Aquamarine Tiara |
The Brazilian Aquamarine Tiara |
The fan/scroll motifs in question |
The Queen in the Five Aquamarine Tiara |
The provenance of Sophie’s tiara remains a mystery. It’s possible, I suppose, that it could still be part of the Brazilian aquamarine set – perhaps it was once a larger tiara and was cut down to provide for the Brazilian Aquamarine Tiara, or perhaps there were more gifts included that we don’t know about.
But the theory that I am increasingly leaning toward is the one of total mystery: this tiara never had anything to do with the gifts from Brazil, and came from somewhere else. Maybe it has something to do with Canada (given the Queen’s initial outing), maybe it was a gift or inheritance from elsewhere, maybe it was one of Queen Mary’s treasures. A mystery.
Wherever it came from, it has now graced the Countess of Wessex’s head, we assume as a loan from the Queen. It’s sort of funny to me that this is the tiara she was allowed to wear, since she already has an aquamarine tiara, what I call the Wessex Aquamarine Tiara. (But then again I suppose when the Queen offers something to you, the proper response is “Thank you, ma’am”, and not, say, “Can I see something in an emerald?”) It suits her, though it has a particularly high base just like her wedding tiara, which can be unattractive when her tiara hair isn’t just so. Sophie’s necklace at the Luxembourg gala dinner was also on loan from the Queen, the King Faisal Necklace (click here to read about that on the Queen’s Jewel Vault). Her Majesty loaning things out is not an everyday occurrence, so this makes another interesting development apart from the tiara.
What’s your theory about this tiara?
Photos: Cour grand ducale/Getty Images/Rex