Fit for a princess! Duchess Kate donned the late Princess Diana’s favorite diamond tiara as she joined husband Prince William to pose for an elegant new royal family portrait at Buckingham Palace in London on Thursday, December 8. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge posed with the queen, her husband, Prince Philip, her son Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, for the official photo.
Mother-of-two Kate, 34, rarely wears the stunning headpiece — known as the Cambridge Lover’s Knot tiara and featuring swinging pearls hanging from 19 diamond-studded arches — in public. The queen inherited the gorgeous tiara from her grandmother Queen Mary, and gifted it to William’s mother, Diana, for her wedding to Charles in 1981. It was returned to the royal family when the couple divorced in 1996. (Diana, of course, died at age 36 in a Paris car crash the following year.) Kate wore a floor-length Jenny Packham dress, which she previously sported at a state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jingping in October last year.
In the new royal portrait, the queen, 90, wears a long-sleeve white Angela Kelly dress and a blue ceremonial sash as she stands in the center, with Prince Philip by her side. To the queen’s right is William’s father, Prince Charles, and Camilla, who followed the queen’s style lead with a white Bruce Oldfield dress and her own diamond tiara. Philip, Charles and William wore white tie as Knights of the Garter, with sash, their medals and knee breeches.
The royals gathered for Thursday’s new portrait before hosting their annual reception for the world’s ambassadors and diplomatic corps in London.
Not pictured — no doubt because the event was well past their bedtime — were Kate and William’s two young children, Prince George, 3, and Princess Charlotte, 19 months.
Also absent the reception was William’s brother, Prince Harry, who on Wednesday returned to the U.K. after a secret whirlwind trip to visit his girlfriend, Suits actress Meghan Markle, in Toronto on Sunday, December 4. The prince jetted to Canada for a quick, under-the-radar visit with his girlfriend of five months after completing an official two-week tour of the Caribbean.
The couple were both spotted wearing matching beaded bracelets on Wednesday after their rendezvous. Markle, 35, who stepped out earlier this week rocking a necklace with ‘M’ and ‘H’ initials, flashed the bracelet while out shopping in Toronto, while Harry, 32, sported matching jewelry at the ICAP Charity Day event after arriving back in the U.K. the same day.
