Sunday Tidbits for November 30: Double Astrid Alerts and More

I'm not ready for Monday. Procrastinate with me, friends.

--The Dutch will pay a state visit to Denmark from March 17-19. I do love a state visit with tiaras on both sides. Polish up those big guns, ladies, polish 'em up. [Kongehuset]

--Astrid Alert #1: Princess Astrid of Belgium has been picking up the slack on the Belgian economic missions now that her brother Philippe is king, and I did love her splash of purple in Singapore this week. [Channel News Asia]

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--Astrid Alert #2: I thought Princess Astrid of Norway looked cute this week, out and about to award the Princess Astrid Music Prize. [Adressa; Kongehuset video]


--Here's another dose of cute for you: Princess Madeleine wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving with a new official picture of herself and wee Leonore. [Kungahuset]


--And here's a dose of whaaaa? for you: Prince Henrik at the royal hunt, displaying the sort of sartorial splendor to which only he can aspire. [Berlingske]

Kun Prins Henrik formår at bære sådan et outfit. #kongejagt http://t.co/QfdcM6Lsxi pic.twitter.com/EDUG48HG61
— Jonas Høy Bruun (@JonasHoyBruun) November 27, 2014

--You know, I don't think Queen Mathilde is sorry at all that her shirt is hypnotizing everyone around her. Clearly some sort of diabolical plan at work. [Zimbio]

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--Yesterday would have been the 80th wedding anniversary of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Prince George and Princess Marina. Here's my original post on Marina's gown; below, a newsreel from the day. [British Pathé]


--And finally, Queen Elizabeth II got a new brooch this week. [Jewel Vault]

Stay tuned on Monday for a return to Sweden.

Photos:  Suhalmi Abdullah via Getty Images, Kongehuset video, Ewa-Marie Rundquist / Kungahuset.se, Twitter, Mark Renders via Getty Images

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Royal Wedding of the Week: November 28

A little treat today, for the end of a holiday week. (Or a regular week, as your case may be. Either way, FRIDAY.)

One of the first royal wedding gowns covered here was that of Marie-Chantal Miller at her 1995 wedding to Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece. 

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At that time, I wrote about my desire to see it on video once again, having seen it many years ago. So you can imagine the jumpy claps that occurred when, while searching around YouTube back in September for the golden wedding of Pavlos' parents, King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie, I stumbled across a huge portion of the wedding broadcast.

Video, above
This is some goooood royal wedding watching, friends. Not only is Marie-Chantal's wedding look incredibly royal (it is a Valentino couture gown, with no expense spared, worn with the Antique Corsage Tiara borrowed from Queen Anne-Marie), this wedding was attended by pretty much everybody. It even features a rare appearance by Queen Elizabeth II, who seldom personally attends such foreign royal events (the wedding was in London and her ties to the Greek royal family are strong, hence the appearance).

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The discussion back in that first entry centered on whether this heavily embellished dress was a bit too overwhelming for this particular bride, but seeing it motion once again is renewing my appreciation for the gown. It certainly is heavy, but it in the midst of that ornate wedding setting and ceremony, it seems to fit right in. In the years since we first covered the dress, it has been displayed - the photos in this entry are from the Valentino: Master of Couture exhibit at Somerset House in 2012 - and I've heard from some of you that saw it in person. So let's revisit my original question: too much dress or no?

Photos: Peter Macdiarmid via Getty Images

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Tiara Thursday (on a Wednesday): The Greek Pearl and Diamond Necklace Tiara

Programming Note: Tomorrow is a holiday (Happy Thanksgiving!), so there will be no new post. But we won't go two weeks without a tiara feature, so enjoy this week's a day early. We'll return on Friday.

It's rare that I like a necklace tiara more in its necklace form - I'm a tiara girl, what can I say? - but I think that might be the case here. Or perhaps what I'm really after is the pendant that this piece once held...

The Greek Pearl and Diamond Necklace Tiara, in necklace form and in detail
Queen Frederika of Greece (1917-1981) had a necklace of pearls and diamonds featuring a large pointed center motif flanked by repeating motifs of a pearl surrounded by a fine diamond line. Not a lot is known about the piece, but Frederika was pictured wearing it fairly early on and continued to use it until late in her life. She used the necklace in its plain form but also swapped out the center motif for a large sapphire pendant from her collection.

Queen Frederika using the tiara as a necklace; Princess Irene using it as a tiara
And when I say "large" sapphire pendant, I mean LARGE. Large as in 478.68 carats in one stone. The sapphire in question has royal connections prior to Frederika: Queen Marie of Romania (1875-1938) wore it first. The cushion-cut sapphire was purchased from Cartier by Marie's husband, King Ferdinand. As you may remember from last time, Marie's jewels had been sent to Russia for safe keeping prior to the Bolshevik revolution and were sadly never returned to her. This sapphire was one of several jewel purchases she and her husband made to replenish her collection. Queen Marie wore the piece on a long diamond sautoir necklace and passed it down in the family, but by the marriage of her grandson King Michael in 1948, the family was in exile and the sapphire had been sold. It was subsequently purchased by a wealthy Greek citizen and presented to Queen Frederika as a private gift.

The sapphire; Queen Frederika using it as a pendant on this necklace
When it wasn't in use as an accessory to that mega sapphire, the pearl and diamond necklace could also be used as a tiara. Queen Frederika's daughter Princess Irene did so on a few occasions in her younger years, and the halo effect created by the side motifs worked well with her of-the-moment hairstyle.

Video, above: Queen Frederika wearing the necklace with sapphire pendant
Irene was the last person (to my knowledge) to be seen using the necklace as a tiara, and it has disappeared from public view. The sapphire also disappeared, only to resurface in a Christie's auction in 2003, where it was listed as the property of a noble family and sold for $1,482,089. It is one of the largest cut sapphires in existence.


Which would you pick: Tiara form, necklace form, or take-the-sapphire-and-run form?

Photos: Flickr/DR/Christie's

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Royal Outfits of the Day: November 25

How about a grab bag of recent royal outfits today? A grab bag specifically from our new and new-ish group of queen consorts. Let's do it:


Réception pour les nouveaux fournisseurs brevetés de la Cour pic.twitter.com/tvuzrJt9Xk
— Belgian Royal Palace (@MonarchieBe) November 24, 2014
I've been thinking about it, and I've decided that Queen Mathilde might be the most Diane Lockhart-esque out of our new batch of queens. And this little number above has Diane written all over it. (It's possible that I've been catching up on The Good Wife and admiring all that expensive fancy lawyer work wear, yes.)

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Queen Mathilde and King Philippe visited Cerfontaine last week.
Not all the time, mind you. Big color and big volume? Not so much.


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Queen Máxima and King Willem-Alexander attended a concert on Friday.
I'm also going to give this one a not so much. Has potential, but the (lack of) finishing details are everything.


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Queen Letizia attended a conference in Rome last week.
This passes muster, I think. It does, however, look like it used to be a crop top, and then someone realized that pope was going to be hanging around, and decided to fill in that middle section right quick.

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He seems to dig it.

Letizia wasn't quite done with the red:

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King Felipe and Queen Letizia celebrated the anniversary of the Spanish National Research Council yesterday.
The orange-ness of this red is testing my  love of Letizia in red. Never mind what I said about the ex-crop top, I'll take that one instead, thanks.

Photos: @MonarchieBe/Mark Renders, Michel Porro, Franco Origlia, Vatican Pool, and Europa Press via Getty Images

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Royal Event of the Week: November 24

National Day in Monaco was last week, so let's catch up with the Monaco Bunch (they're a lot like the Brady Bunch, but with more Chanel).


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The day includes a cathedral service, a ceremony in the palace courtyard, a bit of waving from the balcony, and an evening gala. I genuinely loved Princess Caroline's outfit for the day events - an elegant Chanel blazer and dress, a bit of a hat, some fab hair. Princess Stephanie also looked pretty sleek in her simple coat, though her choice of a scrunchie instead of a hat (she never wears hats, but still) removes any and all coat bonus points.

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Tatiana went for the nutty professor look in her Dolce & Gabbana coat and mortarboard-looking hat, but I kind of like it. Not that anyone was looking much in that direction given the debut National Day appearance of little Sacha and his little knees, clinging to dad Andrea and grandma Caroline.

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Also present at the cathedral were Monaco residents the Duke and Duchess of Castro. She's prone to dramatic outfits and this one certainly does have some flair, but you know the purple is right up my alley.

Princess Charlene skipped out on most of the day's events and I can't blame her, those twins are due next month and if she wants to shuffle around the palace in her bunny slippers all the time right about now, more power to her. But she did make a beaming balcony appearance in an Akris double faced cape with a jaunty beret. (That's the smile of a woman who's still wearing her bunny slippers, fancy outfit and all, right?)

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Also on the balcony, Caroline's daughter Princess Alexandra showed off her dress which is adorned with CROWNS and that is the BEST.
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"Stephanie, look. Look at allllll those people who remembered to leave their scrunchies at home." I think Sacha's on my side here.

At the evening gala, we weren't at risk for scrunchie infection, but we did catch a serious case of ADLD. Another Dang Lace Dress. No fault of Tatiana's that we've seen so.very.many. of these in a row, so I'll just decide she wanted to confirm those reports of her second pregnancy and leave it at that.

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Caroline can be trusted to be different, at least, and her repeated coat is the rare piece that works both as an evening coat and also with your favorite pair of bunny slippers. I'm all for it. I hope she shares with Charlene.

Caroline's Chanel coat, Tatiana's Dolce & Gabbana coat, Charlene's Akris cape (runway version)

Photos: Pascal Le Segretain via Getty Images, Style.com, My Theresa

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Sunday Tidbits for November 23: A Spanish Farewell, a Tiara Watch, and More

Just a few tidbits to get things rolling for the week - tiaras included:

--As you probably know by now, the Duchess of Alba died this week. We covered her wedding dresses a few years ago, when she was marrying for the third time, and it's always been one of the most popular posts on the blog. Infanta Elena represented the royal family at the funeral. [New York Times, Semana]

--Tiara Watch! Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and her husband Pieter van Vollenhoven attended the annual Peter Stuyvesant Ball in New York this week, and she wore the Pearl Button Tiara in its star tiara form, a.k.a. Máxima's wedding tiara. Margriet rounded out her look with another piece customized by Máx, the large bow brooch that usually features a sapphire center but was swapped for a citrine earlier in the year by the Queen. [Telegraaf video]


--The article linked above mentioned the unfortunate misunderstanding this week regarding Queen Máxima's father, Jorge Zorreguieta. If you heard the reports that he had passed away, I also hope you heard that those reports were incorrect. He is being treated for leukemia, but has apparently been released from the hospital. [NOS, Hello]

--Interesting cardigan/jacket thing sported by Crown Princess Mary for a school visit this week (see video below). Looks like something whipped up from assorted yarn leftovers...except, you know, without the free price tag. [Billed-Bladet video]




--Of general interest to fellow magpies: Sotheby's has been auctioning the collection of the late Rachel "Bunny" Lambert Mellon. The jewels included a blue diamond that went for more than $32 million. [New York Times, Sotheby's]

--In non-sparkly auction news, a hat worn by Napoleon (part of a collection being auctioned by the Prince of Monaco) sold for $2.4 million. [BBC]

--And finally, Prince Harry went to Oman and swords were involved. [Telegraph]

Stay tuned for Monday, when we'll catch up with the happenings in Monaco.

Photos: Telegraaf video

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Royal Outfit of the Day: November 20, Plus a Programming Note

The blog will return on Sunday with another round of tidbits!

I leave you with the latest in our series of new sovereign introductory visits - Felipe and Letizia visiting Italy yesterday. The repeated Varela suit is not too bad, though I'd take an evening stroll in Rome over it any day.

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Photo: Franco Origlia/WireImage

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