It was the last royal wedding of the 20th century and it was a big one. As December 1999 got under way, Belgium’s heir married his already hugely popular bride and so created the promise that the country would one day get its first home grown queen. And given that this marriage was making a consort, a very special tiara was chosen for the day.
The Queen Elisabeth Diamond Bandeau Tiara is named after its first owner, who was queen consort of Belgium from 1909 to 1934 as the wife of King Albert I. Belgium doesn’t have the biggest tiara collection among European royal houses and those who want to wear them tend to share them around. Although this tiara hasn’t only been worn by queens, as its names implies, it carries enough historical heft to only appear on important occasions. And the marriage of Mathilde d-Udekem d’Acoz to Philippe, first in line to the throne of Belgium, on December 4th 1999 was certainly one of those.
(You Tube still/ fair use)
The design of the tiara features a series of interlocking Art Deco-inspired shapes (that can almost be viewed as creating the letter ‘E’ for Elisabeth) in a smaller setting that lends the tiara to convert to a choker or a necklace depending on the wearer’s style.
The tiara made its way down a line of queens, reportedly given to Queen Astrid (wife of Elisabeth’s son, King Leopold III) by her mother-in-law as a gift for delivering her third child: the future King Albert II.
After Astrid’s tragically early death, the tiara was worn infrequently by Lillian, Leopold’s second wife. Albert later inherited the tiara, which became Queen Paola’s go-to tiara while she was still the Princess of Liège and even after becoming queen consort in 1993. However, she did also allow her daughter, Astrid, to share the sparkle when the princess wore it on a visit to Germany.
(You Tube still/ fair use)
However, it took on a real star role at that chilly royal wedding in Brussels, twenty five years ago this month. When her son Philippe married Mathilde, Queen Paola lent the Queen Elisabeth Diamond Bandeau Tiara to the future queen, making it the last royal wedding diadem of a century that had seen regal life change beyond imagination.
At the forefront of that change had been Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth, who helped lead her royal family through World War One and hang on to their throne when other, far more established dynasties lost theirs. The royal bride who wore her diamonds on that day, Mathilde, learned that lesson well. When she and Philippe welcomed their first child, in 2001, their little girl was guaranteed to inherit the throne one day and they chose a very significant name for her – Elisabeth.
