It’s December 10th, everyone: one of the most exciting tiara days of the year! The Nobel Prize ceremony and banquet were held in Stockholm today, and there were four dazzling royal tiaras on display for the celebrations.
For the presentation of this year’s Nobel Prizes (with the exception of the Peace Prize, which is presented in Oslo), King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden were joined on stage at Stockholm’s Concert Hall by their daughter, Crown Princess Victoria, and son-in-law, Prince Daniel.
The King and Queen’s two younger children were also present for the ceremony with their spouses. Prince Carl Philip was joined by Princess Sofia, who is expecting their fourth child, and Princess Madeleine attended with her husband, Christopher O’Neill. Madeleine joined the family at the event for the first time since 2019.
Queen Silvia reached into her wardrobe archives for this year’s Nobel gown, re-wearing a navy blue sequin ballgown from the designer Maknam. Her decorations include the sash and star of the Order of the Seraphim and King Carl XVI Gustaf’s Royal Family Order.
With the gown, Silvia wore one of her favorite suites of royal jewelry from the Bernadotte vaults: the Leuchtenberg Sapphires. She’s made numerous appearances in the sapphires at the Nobels over the years, most recently in 2016. (She also wore the sapphires for last year’s King’s Dinner.) This year, she opted to use the tiara, earrings, and brooch from the suite for the ceremony and banquet.
The Leuchtenberg Sapphires take their name from their first owner, Princess Augusta, Duchess of Leuchtenberg, the mother of Queen Josefina of Sweden and Norway. August received the jewels from her mother-in-law, Empress Joséphine of France, to celebrate the birth of Augusta’s first son, Prince Auguste, in 1810. Queen Josefina brought her mother’s sapphires to Sweden, where they’ve resided ever since. Above, Queen Louise wears the suite in a gala portrait taken in the 1930s, during her tenure as crown princess.
Silvia also wore stacks of bracelets on both wrists, and she secured the back of her order sash with a diamond rosette brooch. I thought you’d also appreciate this excellent view of the architectural hairstyle that her talented hairdresser created for the occasion!
Crown Princess Victoria went for a darkly elegant look for this year’s ceremony and banquet, wearing a pink gown with a black tulle overlay. Per UFO No More, the dress was made by the Swedish designer Christer Lindarw. Like her mother, Victoria also wears the insignia of the Order of the Seraphim and her father’s Royal Family Order pinned to her gown.
The Crown Princess reached for her signature tiara for this year’s ceremony, wearing the Baden Fringe Tiara for the occasion. Victoria has been the primary wearer of the tiara for more than two decades now, and she’s so strongly associated with the jewel that, when Mattel created a Barbie doll in her honor, the doll wore a miniature fringe tiara, too. With the fringe, Victoria wore the beautiful diamond and pink topaz earrings from the Russian Pink Topaz Suite.
The Baden Fringe Tiara and the Russian Pink Topazes both have a long history with the Swedish royal family. Both the tiara and the topazes came to Sweden with Queen Victoria, who was born a Princess of Baden. Victoria received the tiara as a wedding present in 1881, and she inherited her great-grandmother’s Romanov topazes from her mother, Grand Duchess Louise, in the 1920s. Above, Victoria’s daughter-in-law, Queen Louise, wears the fringe tiara and the topaz necklace and brooch together in a portrait taken in the 1940s, when she was Crown Princess of Sweden.
Indeed, “Queen Victoria of Sweden” seems to have been the theme of Crown Princess Victoria’s jewelry ensemble for the Nobels. She secured her order sash with the Swedish Diamond Lozenge Brooch, which was also prominently worn in royal portraits by Queen Victoria.
And on her left wrist, Crown Princess Victoria wore the family’s Diamond Zig-Zag Bracelet. It was originally part of a choker necklace that belonged to Grand Duchess Louise of Baden, Queen Victoria’s mother, and it came to Stockholm with Victoria as well. Queen Silvia wore the bracelet at the Nobel Prize ceremony last year.
It was a real joy to see Princess Madeleine make her triumphant return to the Nobels, appearing at the ceremony and banquet for the first time since December 2019. She made a splash at this year’s festivities in a dark green evening gown, complete with a dramatic ruffled train, from the designer Fadi El Khoury. She also wore the Order of the Seraphim sash and star and her father’s Royal Family Order on the dress.
Madeleine added even more sparkle to the gown by wearing the Connaught Diamond Tiara, an heirloom family jewel from the Edwardian period. We most recently saw her wear the tiara, with another gown from the same designer, at the Nobels in 2016. The convertible tiara can also be worn in two necklace settings, and Madeleine has been spotted in both of them over the years.
As the tiara’s name suggests, the jewel originally belonged to Princess Margaret of Connaught, who became Crown Princess of Sweden during her marriage to the future King Gustaf VI Adolf. The tiara was given to Margaret as a wedding present by her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, in 1905. Later, it became the signature tiara of the current King’s mother, Princess Sibylla of Sweden, and today it’s been worn by most of the ladies of the royal family for gala occasions.
Madeleine emphasized the dark green color of her gown by wearing more heirloom jewel pieces from the Bernadotte family’s suite of emeralds. She secured her sash with the Bernadotte Emerald Brooch, and she also wore the diamond and emerald earrings that have been crafted in recent years to accompany the rest of the demi-parure. Victoria memorably wore the earrings at the King’s Dinner in 2022.
Madeleine finished off the look with one of the grandest bracelets in the family collection, Queen Sofia’s Diamond Lattice Bracelet, worn on her left wrist.
Also present for the ceremony and banquet, sparkling in a tiara, was Princess Sofia, who recently celebrated her 40th birthday. She is currently expecting her fourth child, who is due to be born in February. For the occasion, she wore a royal blue evening gown made by Soeren Le Schmidt, decorated with the Seraphim insignia and her father-in-law’s Royal Family Order. Sofia was also recently photographed in the gown for a feature published in Vogue Scandinavia.
As she usually does for the Nobels, Sofia wore her own diamond palmette tiara for the ceremony and banquet. The tiara, which she debuted on her wedding day in 2015, can be worn with a series of different gemstone toppers. This London blue topaz set was first spotted on the princess at the Finnish state banquet in Stockholm last April.
Sofia also added several more interesting pieces of jewelry to her ensemble for the ceremony and banquet on Tuesday, including several pieces with a chain-link design theme. Her earrings, per UFO No More, were made by Orrling Jewellery, and the coordinating bracelet comes from Rare Jewelry. (She’s also wearing a ring that appears to be a matching piece to the bracelet on her right hand.) And finally, she also wore an interesting diamond and blue topaz snowflake brooch, made by LWL Jewelry.
The royal family took the opportunity to take a new gala portrait photograph during the Nobel festivities on Tuesday as well, posing together in a room adorned with portraits of King Gustaf VI Adolf, Crown Princess Margareta, and Prince Gustaf Adolf.
I’ll see you back here later on for a look at the sparkling jewels worn for tonight’s state banquet in Amsterdam!
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