Since joining the British royal family, Kate Middleton has only worn tiaras on a few occasions. Those appearances have been scrutinized highlights of the royal calendar, but one banquet in November 2023 stands out as the most spectacular. During a state dinner given at Buckingham Palace in honor of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, a rare diadem called the Strathmore tiara was threaded into the hair of Prince William’s wife.
The tiara, composed of diamonds arranged to form a delicate garland of wild roses, had not been worn in public since the 1930s. Purchased from London jewelers Catchpole & Williams, it was presented to the Queen Mother, Elisabeth Bowes-Lyon, by her father, the Earl of Strathmore, on the occasion of her marriage to the Duke of York in 1923. The jewel has an ingenious design; it can be worn as a tiara, but can also be disassembled to form five independent brooches.
Elizabeth wore it as a tiara for a series of portraits taken shortly after her wedding; according Lauren Kiehna of jewelry website The Court Jeweller, she was last photographed wearing this piece in the 1930s. Upon her death in 2002, the jewel passed into the hands of her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II—who chose never to wear it. The piece was kept in a vault until it was brought out again in 2023 to adorn Kate Middleton’s head at the State Dinner, at a time when many thought it too fragile or damaged to be worn again.
