How Queen Mary Turned the Royal Learn of the Jewellery Makeover
Queen Elizabeth can thank her grandmother Queen Mary for several of the most stunning of royal jewels. Not only did Queen Mary amass famous diamonds and gems through her husband’s reign, but the forward-contemplating consort also repurposed jewels into modern new parts. Absolutely nothing was much too sentimental or historic for a refresh—not even a diamond wedding ceremony present from her husband’s grandmother, the formidable Queen Victoria.
Queen Mary was a winner of repurposing jewels, and it’s well worth taking a lesson from her playbook on how to gracefully rework crucial stones into timeless pieces. She had an eye for gemstones—and a vision for how to have on them creatively. She commissioned transformable jewels that could be worn in numerous strategies, these as tiaras that turned necklaces, and versatile patterns that had been established with interchangeable stones that are nonetheless worn by the Windsor gals now.
Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Teck, married the long term King George V in 1893. She experienced at first been betrothed to his brother, but he died unexpectedly right before they could wed. She served as King George V’s consort from 1910 until finally his demise in 1936. A mother of 6 and grandmother of nine, Mary experienced a specifically shut connection with her granddaughters, the long run Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, who were the daughters of her son King George VI. Upon Mary’s dying in 1952, (just 10 weeks prior to the youthful Elizabeth’s coronation), most of her jewelry assortment was left to the long run Queen.
Queen Mary obtained her legendary selection above decades. Some pieces had been presents and some she inherited she even ordered gems at estate income. All through her husband’s reign, she was specified the well-known 158-carat Cullinan III, together with the 94.4-carat pear-condition Cullinan III and 63.6-cushion shape Cullinan IV. The latter two stones ended up created into a clip which Mary bequeathed to her granddaughter, Elizabeth II, who fondly refers to them as “Granny’s Chips.”
Blessed for the existing Queen, her grandmother was consistently modifying her treasure chest of jewels and is credited with lots of of the legendary jewels that are favored by the Royal family nowadays, which include the Queen Mary Diamond Fringe tiara. The authentic diamond fringe tiara/necklace was a wedding ceremony present to Mary from Queen Victoria, but it wasn’t a favourite, so Queen Mary experienced it redesigned into a much more modern day piece that could be converted from a tiara into a necklace. So timeless, that tiara was worn by both Queen Elizabeth and her daughter Princess Anne for their weddings, and additional lately by Princess Beatrice when she wed Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in 2020.
One particular of the ideal illustrations of Queen Mary’s visionary jewellery style—and eye for versatility—is the Delhi Durbar suite of jewels and tiara that she commissioned in 1911. The elaborate set was made with the Cambridge emeralds (which have a remarkable backstory) and the tiara was produced with diamonds from the dismantled Boucheron Loop tiara. The adaptable Delhi Dunbar tiara could be worn with huge emeralds or swapped for the mega Cullinan III and IV diamond for an even grander entrance.
Queen Mary was frequently recycling stones from one particular parure of jewels to make or modify one more. She dismantled the County of Surrey and Females of England tiaras to create the tasteful Honeysuckle tiara in 1914. That tiara created by Garrard authorized her to swap the center stone—which she alternated between the Cullinan diamond and a massive sapphire. Following obtaining the Vladimir tiara from the Grand Duchess Vladimir’s estate in 1921, Queen Mary included an element of flexibility by producing the massive pearls interchangeable so that they could be changed with other stones or removed solely to produce a much more discreet type.
Queen Mary was ahead of her time in remaking jewels into multipurpose tasteful pieces that have been remarkably timeless. The principle is particularly preferred right now, as more persons are delving into their jewelry containers and repurposing inherited stones into modern items that work with today’s much more everyday way of living. Like Queen Mary, nobody needs their jewels sitting down a jewelry box or vault they want to put on and delight in them.
In this article, seven designers who can enable you reimagine or recycle stones in classy new pieces.
You May Also Like
