When the then Kate Middleton arrived at Westminster Abbey to marry Prince William APril 2011, it was her Alexander McQueen dress that had hitherto caused most of the frenzied interest into who the designer would be – Sarah Burton – and what a wonder it was. But when she turned and waved at the many thousands standing… albeit her elegant tiara under a veil, set with 700 diamonds caught the sun and sparkled as she walked with her father towards the great west doors.

Called the Cartier Halo tiara, it was acquired in 1936 by the then Duke of York for this wife, only months before his brother infamously abdicated and he became King George VI, and she, Queen Elizabeth.

Cartier has been called the King of jewellery, but it is very much the jeweller of kings, queens, empresses, maharajahs, princesses and almost everyone who is anyone in the aristocracy the world over. 

Indeed it was a King, and Emperor, who early on in his reign, requested the Parisian jewellery maison open a boutique in London, in time to create and supply a typhoon of tiaras for his 1902 coronation – after all there were 400 peeresses expected to attend, and not all owned heirloom headpieces. Cartier made twenty seven new tiaras for the occasion.

Cartier London opened firstly on New Burlington Street, a diamond’s throw from its later home on New Bond Street which opened in 1909, where it remains to this day.

 From the start Queen Alexandra commissioned jewels set with both ‘loose’ (unset) regal gemstones – and new ones that the Parisian jewellers had sourced from their very many tours to the Far and Middle East.

 It was a very clever ploy by Cartier to open in London, after all the British Royal Family are the most famous in the world and where they go – others have always followed and ever since Queen Alexandra, the Royal Family have been firmly loyal in their affection to the brand. 

Kate Middleton on her wedding day wearing the Cartier Halo tiara

A close-up of the Cartier tiara which is not in the exhibition 

The Queen Mother wearing the Halo tiara

Francesca Cartier Brickell who is the great granddaughter of Jacques, the youngest brother who ran the London branch and author of the book, The Cartiers

When I asked Francesca Cartier Brickell, great granddaughter of Jacques, the youngest brother who ran the London branch and author of the book The Cartiers, what it felt like seeing these most famous faces in the world wearing her family’s creations she replied modestly, “It took me a while to realise when my family’s creations were being worn by royalty as Grandpa was so modest, he never mentioned which pieces he, or his father, had played a part in bringing to life. But I do remember feeling quietly proud of my ancestors when the halo tiara was picked for the royal wedding between Kate and William”.

It seems apt that the history of this remarkable firm is explored in an exceptional exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, named after the ancestors of most of Cartier’s royal clientele. 

Curated by the museum’s jewellery director Helen Molesworth, and jewellery editor Rachel Garrahan, there are some 350 pieces of jewellery – most of which were designed in the London branch of the Parisian jewellery maison and many which now belong to His Majesty the King.

 Helen told me at the launch party on Wednesday night  that they “are very excited to have a number of jewels kindly lent to us by HM the King, which show the continual and trusted relationship between successive generations of the royal family and Cartier.”

Kate’s Halo Tiara might not be there but the Princess Royal’s Pineflower tiara one is.

The Pineflower tiara was worn by Princess Anne in Belgrave Square

The Queen wearing the Pineflower tiara, followed by Princess Elizabeth, arrives at the Royal Opera House; Covent garden, London, for a gala performance of Frederick Ashton’s new ballet “Tiresias”

The cabinet dedicated to the Duchess of Windsor at the Cartier exhibition

The Duchess of Windsor wearing the necklace given to her late husband, the Duke of Windsor by Queen Mary following the death of King George V

Wallis Simpson’s famous Flamingo brooch is on display at the V&A

 This – as with the Halo, was bought by George VI for his wife Queen Elizabeth from Cartier London. Created in 1938 with clusters of aquamarines and diamonds designed as pineflowers and interspersed with large rectangular aquamarines, it was not one of Queen Elizabeth’s regularly worn pieces but she wore it in the early fifties a few times – once in 1951 at the Gala Premiere of Frederick Ashton’s Tiresias at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden which attended with her daughter, only months before the latter became queen.

There is a cabinet dedicated to the Duchess of Windsor, which includes her famous Flamingo brooch; Amethyst and turquoise bib necklace and matching bracelet; several pieces from her Panther collection; and a Pearl necklace created in 1956 from a pearl choker of 28 natural pearls that had been given to the Duke of Windsor by his mother Queen Mary, following the death of George V, for the Duchess. She wore the necklace to the Duke’s funeral in 1972. The baroque pearl pendant was added in 1960. 

The tiara now belongs to HRH the Princess Royal, who was given the headpiece in 1973 by her grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, as a wedding present. She wore the tiara in 1974 in New Zealand at the Farewell Banquet of the Commonwealth Games.

The princess then had the tiara altered to reduce its length and a pendant and brooch created from the removed cluster and rectangle, which she has often worn at Buckingham Palace Garden parties. 

Despite a World War, Cartier London’s continued to create magical jewels and in 1943 the firm’s chief designer Frederick Mew designed a pair of flower and leaf clip brooches from loose rubies and diamonds provided by Queen Elizabeth, latterly the Queen Mother. 

They were to complement a Cartier ruby and diamond bracelet, and being clip brooches could cleverly be literally clipped together, or worn apart. She wore them many times and when she died, her daughter inherited them and wore them on many significant occasions including the Westminster Abbey service commemorating her diamond wedding anniversary in 2007.

The Queen was seen wearing a Cartier ruby and diamond brooches when she was commemorating her diamond wedding anniversary in 2007

he Rose clip Brooch dated from 1938, owned by Britain’s Princess Margaret,

Queen Elizabeth II official Coronation picture with Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother

Her late Majesty not only inherited all of her daughter’s floral brooches, but also her love of floral brooches, and in 1952 commissioned Cartier London to set the magnificent 23.6 carat pink diamond that had been given to her as a wedding present six years earlier by Dr John Williamson, a Canadian geologist.

 Several designs were developed by Frederick Mew, including a magnificent dahlia, but the Queen picked the jonquil design that became what we know today as the Williamson Brooch. Set with white diamonds, from the same Tanzanian mine as the pink, in multiple cuts this brooch became one of her most recognised.

It wasn’t just her elder daughter who inherited a love of all things floral – Princess Margaret was also partial to sparkling petals, and had a lifelong interest in botany. In 1952 she was given a magnificent brooch that had been made by Cartier London in 1938, designed as a rose (sweetly matching the princess’s middle name) it is a set with several different diamond cuts including brilliant and baquette. She wore the rose clip brooch in portraits by society photographer Cecil Beaton and at her sister’s coronation in 1953.

Birgitte, Duchess of Gloucester, attended a State Banquet on April 18, 1990 wearing the Cartier Indian Tiara

A visitor looks at The Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala composed by the Patiala necklace and the choker necklace at the Cartier exhibition at the V&A

Another exhibit at the Cartier exhibition which runs from 12 April to 16 November.

One of my favourite royal pieces in the exhibition is this magnificent and majestic tiara that is on loan from TRH The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. 

Called the Cartier Indian Tiara, its motifs of mandorlas and finials are in fact Islamic. Originally set with diamonds, pearls, calibrated sapphires and large aquamarines and sapphires, it was made at Cartier in Paris in 1923, when jewellery was heavily influenced by Indian maharajahs, for Lady Granard, but later acquired by Princess Marie Louise (granddaughter of the museum’s namesake, Queen Victoria) who replaced the large sapphires and aquamarines in the pear shaped mandorlas with diamonds, and wore it at the coronations of both George VI in 1937 and Queen Elizabeth in 1953. 

When she died she left it to her godson, Prince Richard Duke of Gloucester – but as he was only 12 years old at the time, his mother Princess Alice had it for life. Unfortunately she thought it far too big and is believed to have called it “More like a mitre than a tiara, I remember.” Luckily her daughter in law didn’t think so and has worn the tiara at many official occasions.

Cartier is at the V&A South Kensington, London, from Apr 12 to Nov 16