A Royal Tiara Vanished for Almost 100 Years Until Kate Middleton Brought It Back

For almost a century, one of the royal family’s tiaras stayed in the vault and was not seen in public for all that time. It wasn’t damaged or ugly. The Strathmore Rose was a wide band of diamonds that were shaped into a garland of five wild roses with diamond leaves fanning out.

The tiara was a gift to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, whom the world would later call the Queen Mother, from her father when she married into the British royal family in 1923. Her father hadn’t really commissioned it from any royal jeweller. He had bought a used Victorian piece, and it was a lot more impressive than the plain-looking tiara everyone saw at first glance.  

The piece could be taken apart, and all five wild roses could be removed and worn separately as a brooch, and you could even swap out the diamond centres for sapphires. It also came with two frames so you could either wear it across your brow or high on your head. 

Apart from her wedding day, Elizabeth wore the tiara a few more times. That’s because in the 1920s, women preferred wearing their tiaras across the forehead like a headband. The Strathmore Rose tiara was built for that specific 1920s look. But then the fashion trend ended with the decade, and women went back to wearing their tiaras on their heads. The last time anyone saw the tiara in public was in 1935, before it disappeared from the public eye.  

 

It wasn’t until November 2023, at a state banquet in Buckingham Palace, nearly a hundred years after it was first worn, that the tiara was spotted glittering on the Princess of Wales.