Queen Elizabethwill recognize a piece from her own jewelry vault in the newDownton Abbeymovie.
Photos from the movie show Geraldine James as Queen Mary wearing the Vladimir Tiara, one of the 93-year-old monarch’s favorite sparkling head-toppers — and a piece she inherited directly from her grandmother.
Of course, the headpiece in the film isn’t the real deal — but costume designer Anna Robbins toldTown and Countrythat model maker Martin Adams went through extreme measures to ensure it was difficult to tell the difference.
“It was a painstaking process to make each as faithfully as possible and took many hours,” she said.
Dan Kitwood/AFP/Getty; Focus Features
Queen Mary.Universal Images Group/Getty Images
“For all the royal jewels depicted in the movie, we wanted pieces that the audience might recognize from our current royals that also worked in terms of style and proportion for the costumes,” Robbins added of choosing to incorporate the Vladimir Tiara in the film. “We were careful to choose pieces that were owned and in the possession of the characters depicted wearing them at the time.”
Queen Elizabeth.
Queen Elizabeth.Anwar Hussein/Getty
Irish President Michael D. Higgins and Queen Elizabeth.
Queen Elizabethhas also worn the tiara without any drops, letting the intertwined diamond circles strung together with a diamond ribbon on top have the spotlight.
Queen Elizabeth.Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty
The tiara has an amazing history. It was commissioned as a wedding gift in 1874 when Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin became a member of the Romanov dynasty (and Grand Duchess Vladimir) upon her marriage to Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia. Romanov court jeweler Bolin created the headpiece, which became known as the Vladimir Tiara.
That summer, British officer Bertie Stopford snuck into the palace dressed as a worker (or as told in another version, an old woman) and recovered the jewels. They were taken to London and given to Grand Duchess Vladimir’s son, Grand Duke Boris.
Grand Duchess Vladimir’s daughter Elena (now Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark) decided to sell some of her mother’s jewels, including the Vladimir Tiara, in 1921. Queen Mary purchased the piece, which she sent to Garrard to repair damage to the tiara during the journey from Russia to the U.K.
source: people.com
