CHAPTER 4
The Art of Feminine Adornment
From head to foot milady is concerned with jewels. Her crowning glory, her hair, is today, however, left largely to display its own lustrous beauty in coiffures carefully designed for the individual taste and figure. Hat ornaments of elaborate jewels have long ceased to be popular. By the beginning of this century even the essential hatpin had been reduced to utilitarian simplicity, a round piece of jet or colored stone atop a long rod of steel which, with its sharp point, not only held the hat in place but made a handy weapon of defense.
How much can be worn in the hair depends upon its styling. The chignon, or other knot behind, permits the use of comb or ornamental pin. The most elaborate of the combs, looking best on a tall woman with dark hair, is the Spanish comb, consisting of a few teeth below a large crest of shell often encrusted with stones. Less favored, but attractive with more exotic types, is the Japanese pin, a long rod of carved ivory or of black lacquered wood decorated in colors and usually worn in a pair.
Few women, outside of the nobility on state occasions, wear the metal bands set or peaked with gems, called indiscriminately diadems or tiaras. Such a band of precious metals and stones, worn by a prince or noble of high rank, is the coronet. The monarch himself, as an emblem of sovereignty, wears a more elaborate circlet or head covering, the royal crown.
Royal Crowns of Britain
Most famous of the royal crowns are those of the British Empire, three for the monarch, two for his queen. First of the three is the reputed crown of Edward the Confessor, which was destroyed by the Commonwealth. It was reproduced by Charles II and, with its inner Cap of Maintenance, has been worn at all the English Coronations since 1661. It is of “massie golde” and weighs four pounds. Since neither this, nor the Imperial Crown of State, may leave the British Isles, a special Imperial Crown of India, the third royal crown, was made for the investiture of George V at Delhi in 1911.
By far the most magnificent of the three royal crowns is the Imperial Crown of State. This may officially be made anew for each new monarch, but the crown that showed the glory of Queen Victoria in 1839 has with few modifications been used by all her successors. This great crown is adorned with historic treasures of the centuries. The great pearl earrings of Elizabeth I are nested here; the sapphire from Edward the Confessor’s Coronation Ring; the Stuart Sapphire, an oval an inch and a half by an inch; the Black Prince’s ruby, large as a hen’s egg. Although the Star of Africa, the world’s largest cut diamond, a pear-shaped brilliant of about 530 carats, crowns the head of the royal sceptre, two other brilliants cut from the same rough diamond adorn the Imperial Crown. One, the cushion-shaped diamond in the band, below the Black Prince’s ruby, weighs 309³⁄₁₆ carats; the other, of 96 carats, is to the side of the band. Literally thousands of other precious stones, including smaller diamonds of various cuts and sizes, make the British Imperial Crown of State, at one time signifying dominion over the most widespread of all empires, the most imposing of all crowns.