Tonight, King Charles III and the British royal family hosted a grand state banquet for the President of Germany at Windsor Castle, with plenty of tiaras and jewels dazzling on the royal ladies in attendance—including a stunning surprise from the Princess of Wales.
The men at tonight’s banquet wore white tie, with King Charles in a modern take on the Windsor Uniform. Queen Camilla repeated a teal lace evening gown that we previously saw her wear during the recent Italian state visit. Both Charles and Camilla wore the sash and star of Germany’s Order of Merit among their orders and decorations, and Queen Camilla also added Charles’s Royal Family Order. President Steinmeier wore several decorations as well, including the Order of the Bath.
With the ensemble, Camilla wore a very familiar tiara: the Girls of Great Britain & Ireland Tiara, the favorite tiara of her late mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II. The tiara was a wedding gift to Queen Mary in 1893 from a committee of young women. She passed the tiara on to Elizabeth in 1947, and Camilla has been wearing it since 2023.
Camilla chose a grand pair of earrings from her personal collection to wear with the tiara. These are the long earrings from her demi-parure set with pear-shaped diamonds. They also have a coordinating necklace.
But instead of that matching diamond necklace, Camilla brought out another treasure from the royal vaults. She wore an emerald and diamond necklace that is thought to come from the Greville Bequest. It can also be worn with a set of cabochon emerald pendants, which Camilla sensibly left in the jewelry cassette on this occasion. The late Queen Elizabeth II wore it, in that full setting, just once: for the Diplomatic Reception of 2019, which turned out to be her final tiara appearance.
Camilla finished off the look with a stack of the late Queen Mother’s Cartier Art Deco Bracelets and secured her sash with Queen Victoria’s diamond bar brooch.
But it was the Princess of Wales who pulled off the biggest tiara coup of the evening. She arrived for the banquet wearing a Jenny Packham evening gown with the sash and star of the Royal Victorian Order and the King’s Royal Family Order, plus one of the tiaras designed by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria.
This is the Indian Circlet, a jewel inspired by Prince Albert’s visits to the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was particularly struck by Indian jewels presented to Queen Victoria at the time, and the Mughal arches and lotus flower designs in the circlet were inspired by those Indian pieces.
Originally, the tiara was set with diamonds and opals. It had to be redesigned slightly when a judge ordered that some of the diamonds had to be sent to Victoria’s cousins in Hanover, and the opals were later replaced by Queen Alexandra. The tiara is one of the jewels that Queen Victoria designated as an Heirloom of the Crown.
Later, the tiara became a treasured favorite of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who wore it throughout the reigns of her husband and her daughter. Queen Elizabeth II wore it just once, for a banquet in Malta in 2005. That appearance twenty years ago was the last time the tiara was worn in public—until tonight.
With the tiara, Catherine wore a pair of delicate diamond chandelier earrings. These earrings were loaned to her by Queen Elizabeth II shortly after her wedding to Prince William in 2011.
There were three more gorgeous royal tiaras being worn in Windsor this evening. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were in attendance, with the Duchess wearing the Wessex Aquamarine Necklace Tiara and her suite of sapphire and diamond jewels from Graff.
The Princess Royal and the Duchess of Gloucester walked in to the banquet together, with the Duke and Sir Tim following behind. It was a sensational pairing jewelry-wise, as both Anne and Birgitte wore the tiaras that they recently loaned to the Cartier exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Anne sparkled in the Aquamarine Pineflower Tiara and its coordinating jewels, while Birgitte paired the Cartier Indian Tiara with gorgeous diamonds. Now that the exhibition has ended, the tiaras are back in royal hands.
A scheduling note: this article takes the place of our usual Thursday morning post. I’ll be back here Friday morning with some more sparkle. In the meantime, be sure to head over and subscribe to Hidden Gems, because this week’s free bonus newsletter will be hitting inboxes tomorrow! (Spoiler: more big tiara and auction news, and so much more!)
