Tiara envy would have me wearing a diadem from dawn till dusk
The sighting of the Duchesses of Cornwall and Cambridge resplendent in diadems at the Queen’s Diplomatic Reception brought about an acute case of tiara envy; said ornaments being the only remotely enviable thing about being royal.
I harbour no Disney princess aspirations. However, I am a lifelong tiara obsessive, owning several low-rent versions, sported at parties or aboard a gondola at the Venice Film Festival. For the purposes of my so-called job, I was once crowned with a coruscating, 178-carat Graff incarnation.
I like to think that two decades in journalism has rendered me largely unimpressionable. Some hope. The transformation was profound: for the first and only time in my life, I looked beautiful.
Tiaras are ageless – Camilla wears one particularly brilliantly – and so winningly practical, the architecture of a diadem invariably including the ability to wear it as a necklace, or with a stone convertible into ring, or brooch.
Were I to lay claim to a real one – the Queen’s halostyle Kokoshnik, say, or Barbara Hutton’s emerald Cartier show-stopper
– I would never be out of it, whether pelting down Piccadilly, or in the bath, à la Snowdon’s portrait of Princess Margaret.