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The Queen's Jewels - Documentary Review
Posted by Sam (The Beau Monde) on February 17, 2020, 8:37 am
So, Channel 5 in the UK just premiered a documentary regarding the British Royal Jewels and as I predicted it was nothing to write home about.
It was mainly full of gossip and speculation. There was a section on how Queen Elizabeth used her brooches to shade Trump by wearing pieces given to her by Obama and Trudeau.
There was another segment about the Hesse Strawberry Tiara being known as 'The Haunted tiara' (nyews to me). Not only is that tiara not owned by the British Royal Family, they introduced it using a picture of the Queen wearing the Cambridge Lover's Knot Tiara .
Another random piece they covered was the Lennox/Darnley jewel. What on earth it was doing in this documentary I don't know seeing as it's considered an historical piece of artwork that's part of the Royal Collection and not worn.
There was then this whole bit about the Meghan vs Eugenie Emerald tiara alleged fight that ended up completely contradicting itself. Apparently, Princess Eugenie had 'earmarked' the Greville Tiara, always knowing that she (being a princess) would wear a tiara on her wedding day. They then tried to make a point that Meghan was only allowed to wear a tiara from the 'third class' and Eugenie got to wear one from the 'first class'. If that were the case, then why has the Greville Emerald Tiara only been worn by the 10th in line to the throne the whole time it has been in the Royal Family. The documentary then says 'Neither women got the tiara they wanted so Eugenie wore the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik'. So what on earth were you just talking about???
I suppose the only redeeming bit of this documentary was a look at the original design ledger from E.Woolf & Co. I didn't even know they were still in business but they showed the original drawings for the Cambridge Lover's Knot Tiara.
It sounds like a quickly thrown together mishmash of comments and jewels. Why on earth include the Hesse Strawberry tiara? The link to the British royals is that Queen Victoria gave it to her daughter, Alice. But Queen Victoria never wore it, so I think it is a bit odd to have included it.
Originally the firm was a manufacturing jeweller for all the grand London retail jewellery houses and, according to Geoffrey Munn, were the tiara makers extraordinaire.
Sam's review beat mine, if you didn't see it you missed nothing. Just to spice things up the programme also included the Princess Michael blackamoor brooch saga & Elizabeth Taylor beating the PoW (?) to The PoW feathers brooch at the Duchess of Windsor jewellery sale.