On August 25, 2001, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway married fellow Norwegian Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby in the charming Oslo Cathedral. The princely pair are facing challenges because of the Marius Borg case (Mette-Marit’s son has been indicted by the Prosecutor’s Office on 32 charges). Next year, however, they will celebrate their silver wedding anniversary to the astonishment of those who believed the marriage was the result of a fleeting passion.
To make the leap from commoner to princess, Mette-Marit chose the diamond Daisy tiara, one of two tiaras given to her by her in-laws, King Harald and Queen Sonia of Norway, to commemorate the event. The other headdress was worn as a choker the night before the wedding at the Akershus Fortress in Oslo. Both baubles stand out for their original design, though neither is included in rankings of the world’s most expensive tiaras, even when referring only to the ones that belong to the Norwegian royal family.
Known as the Vifte tiara (Norwegian for fan), it imitates the shape of a fan. To be more precise, it resembles the silhouette of the open surface of a winnowing fan minus a few rods and guards. In this case, the surface is strewn with diamond flowers and leaves growing towards the sun. The base is formed by a riviere strand of princess-cut diamonds. The structure is made of gold and silver.
The tiara was the gift from the wealthy Alfred, Leopold, and Marie Rothschild to Princess Maud of Wales when she married the future King Haakon II of Norway in 1896, though it was long believed to have been purchased by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Maud, the princess with the narrowest waist of her generation, was a cousin of Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain, the consort of Alfonso XIII and great-grandmother of current King Felipe VI.
In 1938, Queen Maud took all her jewels to London and died of a heart attack on November 20, following an operation due to an abdominal obstruction. It was not until 1953, coinciding with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, that the Norwegian royal family negotiated the return of these jewels, which were distributed among the heirs of the deceased on the occasion of the marriage of then-Prince Harald to Sonia Haraldsen in 1968. The mother of the current king, Martha of Sweden died in 1954, three years before her husband, Olaf V was proclaimed king.
Queen Sonia wore the Vifte tiara on several occasions before offering it to her daughter-in-law 24 years ago. It was not one of her favorites—she has always preferred the more ostentatious ones of the House. Princess Mette-Marit has worn the tiara as a necklace at her aforementioned pre-wedding and at a gala dinner almost two decades ago. Otherwise, she has only brought it out for a 2017 gala celebrating the 80th birthdays of King Harald and Queen Sonia at the Royal Palace in Oslo.
Originally published in Vanity Fair Spain.
