The countdown to the next Swedish royal wedding has begun, kids. (That will be Sweden's Carl Philip and Sofia, in case you haven't been paying attention in class.) So don't be surprised if you see some random flashbacks to random outfits worn to random Scandinavian royal weddings in the past in the month to come. Starting...now!
Crown Princess Mary turned up at Crown Princess Victoria's wedding in a flowing Jesper Høvring gown with a lace top, plus her ruby tiara and ruby earrings with pearls attached. This was the first time Mary wore the Danish Ruby Parure Tiara outside of Denmark, and it was a fitting choice: Queen Ingrid made the rubies one of her signature jewels, and Ingrid was a Swedish princess who married the future King of Denmark in the very same church where Victoria was set to marry Daniel. And of course, the ruby set has a Swedish history of its own.
The jewels I was on board with, but the rest of this look didn't make much sense to me. The muted blue/green shade of the gown seemed such a strange choice as a background for ruby jewels and the bright yellow and blue sash of Sweden's Order of the Polar Star. The beige lace and the asymmetrical top didn't tie in with anything either. It didn't start to make sense until we saw the gown again the following year, after it underwent one of those trademark Danish royal makeovers...
And now I get it! Well, I get it as long as this was the end goal all along, making the look for Victoria's wedding just a temporary stop along the way. The now-banished lace made sense as a cover for the shoulders for a church wedding and a place to stick the sash and portrait brooch, intended to be replace with a sweeping over the shoulder addition at a later date.
Høvring does this flowy thing very well indeed, and in this format, I'd put this among my Mary favorites. The only downside is that it took a previous version to get here.
Photos: via Getty Images as indicated
