This year marks the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (as well as the Olympics, so if you are headed to London this summer yay for you!). I found out that the exhibit this year at Buckingham Palace is, apropos enough, some of the Queen’s best diamonds. I thought I would share a few pics of some of my personal favorite royal jewels, because, well, it’s Tuesday, I’m buried in revisions, and I love to look at some sparkly. I tried to keep it to the Queen’s own jewels, not crown stuff or complicated things like the Cullinan diamonds or the crowns. They deserve their own post later.
And if you’re still not done with style and sparkle, be sure and check out the crazy that was the Met Ball last night. Gwyneth…why???
Jewel One: The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara (my personal favorite of all the royal tiaras!). As you might have guessed, this was a wedding gift to Queen Mary from (yep) some girls of Great Britain and Ireland. In her thank-you note, Mary wrote “I need scarcely assure you that the tiara will ever be one of my most valued wedding gifts,” and it has been ever since
Jewel Two: Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik Tiara. Because I am a sucker for anything “Russian”, and this was a silver wedding anniversary gift to Queen Alexandra (the empress of “never enough bling”), based on tiaras belonging to her sister Empress Marie of Russia…
Jewel Three: The queen’s 18th birthday bracelet…
Jewel Four: Some brooches (because I couldn’t choose just one from a lady who loves her a sparkly brooch!). But my own fave is the sapphire Prince Albert brooch, a wedding gift from Albert to Victoria and willed to the Crown after her death…
Jewel Five: The queen’s 3-carat engagement ring…
And Jewel Six: (yes, yes, it wasn’t the queen’s at all, but Princess Margaret’s, and was sadly sold after her death, but I am in deep, deep love with the Poltimore Tiara)
And there you have it! Just a few examples from the vast royal treasure cave. I like this because they have something personal about them and the queen seems to like them too. What are some of your favorites??