They’ve lent an aura of dignity and royal class through the centuries. And now it’s Princess Catherine turning heads as the Royal Family’s Pearly Queen…

• Kate is matching her new role as a senior royal with strings of  pearls
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Signifying dignity and class, pearls have been associated with the royals – men and, women – for centuries. Just look at the portraits.

Pearly Queen Mary adored this most pure of gemstones, and in one famous studio portrait wears an 11-strand choker so strung with pearls it looks like a piece of armour.

So did her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), albeit in slightly more understated way, although she, too, would year yard-long pearl necklaces coiled high around the necks while swooping low below the bust-line.

Meanwhile, Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was rarely seen without her three-strand pearl necklace and earrings.

Kate looks dignified in pearls at the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance

The set of pearls had previously been worn by the late Queen Elizabeth at the same event in earlier years. Here she is pictured in 2019

Catherine wears earrings with outsized pearls at the Cenotaph on November 12

 Now, in keeping with her new role as one of the most senior royals, the Princess of Wales, too, is falling in love with pearls – and has recently been seen wearing some of the pieces that once belonged to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The Princess of Wales wore a significant three-strand pearl necklace to the recent Festival of Remembrance in the Royal Albert Hall.

The occasion was marked by an unveiling of her statue alongside that of her late husband by their son, King Charles.

For the Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph the following morning, Kate wore a pair of pearl and diamond leaf earrings. These, too, had belonged to Her late Majesty.

They matched a brooch that Kate has worn for previous Remembrance Day services in 2017 and 2018, and for a service in honour of the late Queen last year .

The necklace worn by Kate at the Albert Hall on November 11 had been worn four years ago by Her Late Majesty at the same event. Kate had also worn it last September at a lunch given before the State Funeral.

It is not one of a trio of three-strand pieces that Elizabeth had worn almost daily. This one is longer.

The pearl and diamond earrings worn the following morning belonged to the Queen who was photographed wearing them in Nigeria in 2003 at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

They form a set with the the brooch that the Princess of Wales has worn on many occasions.

Kate has worn several other inherited pairs of earrings that belonged to Her late Majesty, including a more simple pair set with diamonds given to then Princess Elizabeth for her wedding in 1947 by the Hakim of Bahrain, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad.

These were also worn by the late Princess of Wales, Diana in the 1980s

Another piece becoming associated with Catherine, but mostly for sombre reasons, is part of what is known as the Japanese Pearl Suite (the pearls were given by the Japanese government in the 1970s.)

Queen Elizabeth drinks a toast at dinner for Commonwealth officials in Nigeria in 2003 – pearls on full display

The gems have had royal associations down the centuries, favoured by monarchs including  Elizabeth I. This portrait is from around 1588

Queen Mary, grandmother to the late Queen Elizabeth, was notably fond of statement pieces based on pearls, including the 11-string choker in this photograph

The Duchess of York, later to be Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mother, pictured in 1926

They were strung as a four strand choker, along with a spectacular diamond clasp, by Garrard, and include a matching bracelet.

Kate wore the necklace at the funerals of both Prince Philip in 2021 and that of Her late Majesty in 2022 – although it did first wear it on a happier occasion: the celebrations for 70th Wedding Anniversary of the Queen and Prince Philip in 2017.

The Princess of Wales seems to stick with the same pieces when honouring her husband’s grandparents.

Our Princess of Pearls wears the gemstone for less sombre occasions, too.

Perhaps the best-known and earliest piece of royal pearl jewellery worn by Kate is the Lover’s Knot Tiara made in 1913 by Garrard for Queen Mary and beloved by Princess Diana.

Catherine was first seen in this exquisite piece in December 2015 for the annual Diplomatic Reception at Buckingham Palace .

Queen Mary had commissioned it to replicate her grandmother, Princess Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge’s, early 1800s Cambridge Lover’s Knot Tiara.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, wears pearls to meet Commonwealth representatives in 2022

Catherine, Princess of Wales during the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey

Wearing a four-strand pearl choker and drop earrings, Kate attends the national service of thanksgiving and dedication to the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla in July

Her late mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, wears the same choker in Bangladesh

Catherine wore pearl drop earrings for the state visit of the South African president last year

Her late mother-in-law had worn the same earrings in a slightly altered form

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for Trooping the Colour in 2016

When Garrard delivered the headpiece to Queen Mary only months before the start of the First World War, there were 19 upright pearls on the cresting, as well as the 19 pendant pearls we see today, which were transferred to the Vladimir Tiara to be interchangeable with the emeralds.

The Lovers Knot name comes from the bows that run the length of the band. The bow is tied in a complicated knot, making it hard to untie – symbolising the bonds of love.

Another heirloom comes in the shape of Princess Diana’s South Sea Pearl and diamond earring set.

These were worn by Kate at the Coronation of King Charles and on other occasions, although Kate has varied them. She wears a smaller pair of pearls suspended from the diamonds than her late mother-in-law, who had been given them during a tour of the Gulf in 1989.

Catherine, then, has a treasure trove of ‘pearlooms’, but also possesses some modern pearl pieces of her own, including oversized Mabé Pearl earrings – seen worn at 2016’s Trooping of the Colour.

This type cultivated of pearl has been around since 12th century in China, but became popular in the 1950s around the time that a traditional large pearl called South Sea, from Australia, the Philippines and Indonesia, became very rare.

Mabe versions are half-pearls and cultivated inside a mollusk’s shell in either salt or freshwater and are hollow.

Catherine Duchess of Cambridge wears one of her own pearl pieces for the Queen’s Birthday Garden Party at the Orangery, Warsaw. The stones are cultivated Mabe pearls

Baroque – non-spherical – pearls appeared for last year’s Wimbledon

This Van Cleef and Arpels necklace and matching earrings in mother of pearl were worn in the Bahamas. Kate is pictured attending reception held by the Governor General

She wore these, and a matching necklace a year later in Poland.

At Wimbledon last year, 2022, Kate wore a pair of Baroque (non-spherical) pearls

And of course – who can forget the exquisite Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra earrings and necklace set in mother of pearl, which Kate wore with a Philippa Lepley dress last year at a dinner hosted by the Governor-General of the Bahamas.

• Josie Goodbody, is a jewellery writer and author of mystery novels 

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