Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle each donned jewelry that honored Queen Elizabeth II as they attended a service following the procession of the Queen’s coffin from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster on Wednesday.
Kate wore one of the Queen’s famous brooches: a piece called the Diamond and Pearl Leaf Brooch that was loaned to her by the late monarch in 2017.
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The Queen would often lend items from her — and the Crown’s — extensive jewelry collection to other women in the royal family. During the service, the new Princess of Wales paired the brooch with earrings and a bracelet that belonged to her mother-in-law, Princess Diana.
A Sussex spokesperson confirmed to BuzzFeed News that Meghan wore a pair of diamond and pearl earrings that were gifted to her by the Queen before their first joint royal engagement in June 2018.
The gems were noticed and identified by royal jewelry expert Lauren Kiehna, who chronicles the collections of the world’s royal families on her website, the Court Jeweller.
“In Western cultures, white gemstones like diamonds and pearls, paired with black clothing, are traditional choices for mourning,” Kiehna told BuzzFeed News.
“The Queen wore pearls and diamonds for funerals, memorials, and remembrance services throughout her entire reign.”
The Queen gifted Meghan the earrings she wore on Wednesday, on June 14, 2018, just before they both attended an official engagement in Halton, England.
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Meghan described this moment in her interview with Oprah Winfrey last year. Markle said that she and the Queen were traveling to the engagement by train when the monarch gifted her “beautiful pearl earrings and a matching necklace.”
“We had breakfast together that morning, and she’d given me a beautiful gift. I just really love being in her company,” Meghan said.
The Queen only wore the Diamond and Pearl Leaf brooch in public once — on a trip to Seoul in 1999, as Kiehna detailed in the Court Jeweller. The piece was not seen again until Kate wore it on a somber trip to a World War I memorial in Belgium in 2017. She wore it again in 2018.
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The earrings worn by Kate on Wednesday are known as the Collingwood Pearl Drop Earrings, a favorite of Diana’s.
The bracelet Kate wore that same day doesn’t have a name like some of the other royal jewels, however, it is a three-row pearl bracelet that was designed for Diana in 1988.
All of Diana’s jewelry belongs to her sons William and Harry. In a special “letter of wishes” released after her death, she wrote that she was allocating her jewelry to her sons, “so that their wives may, in due course, have it or use it. I leave the exact division of the jewelry to your discretion.”
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