It will mark a significant milestone when Princess Lilibet, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, experiences her first tiara moment.
While Prince Harry and Meghan withdrew from royal duties in 2020, there remains the possibility that their daughter will one day adorn herself with royal jewels akin to her mother’s.
Lilibet, aged two, and her older brother, Archie, aged four, are anticipated to forge their own paths as they mature, following the example set by Harry’s cousins, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
Despite not serving as working members of the royal family, both Beatrice and Eugenie wore tiaras from their grandmother Queen Elizabeth II’s jewelry collection on their wedding days.
In 2018, Eugenie borrowed the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik tiara for her marriage to Jack Brooksbank, while in 2020, Beatrice donned Queen Mary’s Diamond Fringe tiara for her intimate ceremony with Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi—the same tiara worn by Princess Elizabeth on her wedding day to Prince Philip in 1947.
As Lilibet is a grandchild of King Charles, it is plausible that the monarch may loan her a tiara for her own wedding day in the future. Meghan wore the art-deco style Queen Mary’s Diamond Bandeau tiara with her Givenchy wedding dress when she wed Prince Harry in 2018.
In his memoir, “Spare,” Harry recounted the touching moment when his bride was given the opportunity to select a tiara for her nuptials by the late Queen. The Duke expressed their gratitude when his maternal aunts, Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, inquired if Meghan would like to wear the late Princess Diana’s Spencer Tiara.
“Shortly before the wedding, however, Granny reached out. She offered us access to her collection of tiaras. She even invited us to Buckingham Palace to try them on. Do come over, I remember her saying,” Harry recalls.
“Extraordinary morning. We walked into Granny’s private dressing room, right next to her bedroom, a space I’d never been in. Along with Granny was a jewelry expert, an eminent historian who knew the lineage of each stone in the royal collection. Also present was Granny’s dresser and confidante, Angela [Kelly].”
Harry says that the late Queen had chosen five tiaras from the vault – “One was all emeralds. One was aquamarines. Each was more dazzlingly stunning than the last”.
