ISSUE #32: Spring 2024’s Hottest Royal Style Trend Is Bugs
Every monarch has an army of creepy crawlies in their arsenal.
Earlier this week, the Dutch Queen Maxima, known for her sartorially daring looks, stepped out in a monochrome gray outfit with two enormous spiders pinned to her shoulder. The size and detail of the beaded brooches led commentators to describe them as “horrific” and “the stuff of nightmares,” yet others begrudgingly admitted they were also “cool.” (You can buy them for $450 each from Argentinian jeweler Celedonio.) Queen Maxima has a collection of insect pins: she has been spotted sporting a giant amber beetle, a diamond sphinx moth, and a trio of colorful spider brooches similar in design to vintage pins from the 1930s.
Just yesterday, Britain’s Queen Camilla, not to be outdone, visited a Shrewsbury farmers market wearing two insect pins: a large bee made of diamonds, tiger’s eye, and rubies (likely a nod to the local BeeKeepers’ Association), and a smaller housefly made of diamonds and sapphires that had apparently never been seen on her before, but possibly belonged to Queen Elizabeth II. Bug jewelry is something of a tradition in the royal family, with bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and moths adorning the lapels of everyone from Queen Camilla to Princess Anne to Princess Beatrice. (If the designer of the stunning £50,000 stick insect Camilla wore to Elizabeth’s funeral has any extras lying around, I wouldn’t say no.)
So, are monarchs of various European kingdoms just entomology enthusiasts in disguise? Yes and no.
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