While some royal women, like Princess Diana, make their wedding tiaras a part of their wardrobe throughout their lives, others—like Princess Kate—choose not to wear their wedding-day designs again. Queen Mary of Denmark, for one, has gone a different route and altered her antique tiara to make it her own, and she brought the sentimental design back for a state banquet in Estonia on January 27.
Queen Mary and King Frederik married in 2004, and Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik gave a vintage diamond tiara of unknown provenance to their new daughter-in-law. She's worn the piece on numerous occasions since then, opting to pair it with a custom navy Prada gown for Tuesday's banquet.
Jewelry expert Nilesh Rakholia, founder of Abelini, tells Marie Claire that "wedding tiaras are often frozen in time, locked to a single moment." However, in Mary's case, she opted to alter the design to make it more versatile.
"What makes Mary’s different is that she has allowed it to evolve alongside her," Rakholia says. "In 2011, she commissioned alterations so detachable pearls could be added to the fleur-de-lis motifs, along with a row of pearls at the base. That decision is quietly significant.”
For the banquet in Tallinn, Estonia, Queen Mary chose to wear the diamond design in its original form rather than including the newer pearl additions.
Rakholia continues, “By choosing to adapt the tiara rather than preserve it untouched, Mary asserted authorship over her jewelry. It remains a wedding gift, but it is also a living object—shaped by the woman who wears it, not just the moment it commemorates."
Mary and Frederik have weathered some ups and downs in recent years amid infidelity rumors, and Rakholia says that the Danish queen's choice to wear her wedding tiara reflects a "sense of continuity" that "lends the tiara a deeper emotional weight."
"Two decades on, this piece no longer symbolizes a wedding alone," he tells Marie Claire. "It reflects endurance—a marriage that has matured under public scrutiny and responsibility."
