The wire Royals - an historical study

The entry of Kronmakaren in the historical costume festival
(mind you, english is not my main language :-))


The history as a "backdrop"

Jean Baptiste Bernadotte
when King of Sweden

In 1810, Sweden was desperatly in need of a new brave King and the nobels looked in every corner of Europe to find a man fit for the job. And they found him, in Paris, closely interlinked with the Napoleon court, as he was one of his Marchals. His name was Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, and he was a magnificent man, called la belle jambe, by many. His wife, Désirée Clary, had previously been engaged to Napoleon, but was dumped becauce of him meeting Josephine de Beauharnais, the lovely widow who entertained the republican soldier Napoleon in the salons of Paris after the revolution.

She soon became his favourite and also his wife and later on the first Empress of France, empress of a luxurious court, with splendor never before seen. Her jewlery was of the best quality, often made by the jewler Nitot in Paris (former jewler of Marie Antoinette, whom they beheaded), and she was quite known for here extravagant spending and her love for beautiful jewlery and clothing.

Josephine de Beauharnais in
full coronation dress.

Due to the fact that the Bernadotte family came upon the swedish throne and the Napoleon family came upon the french throne they became closely intertwined with each other through the marriage between Désirees son Oscar I and Josephines grand daughter Josephine, princess of Leuchtenburg. And through Josephine, many of her grand mothers jewlery and diademes ended up in the swedish royal  trust through heritage.

A marvelous treachure that you can see on Nobel night. When the swedish Queen and princesses dress up in the finest jewlery.

A small, but significant detail, in all this is that the election of the new royal heir Bernadotte took place in Örebro 1810. And Örebro is my birth city, so voila, there it is, close to home and local history.

My reason for this "wired project"
In 2010 it is a 200 year jubilée of Bernadotte regency in Sweden and it is this story and the personal relations that has sparked my inspiration for this project; To remake five of the swedish royal diademes, with the french herritage of Josephine and Désirée, into wire work resigns. I call the project "Kungligt som grannlåt" in swedish and it ruffly translates into "Royal jewlery as common trinkets (finery)".

a sketch of the cameodiademe to see
detailing and resin cameos.

It is hard to explain this game with words and undelaying meaning, but it derives from an old scandinavian tradition of dressing the bride before the wedding. They used trinkets (finery) and crowns made out of simple material in bright and shiny colours. Often the crown was a remake of a stylish golden crown as seen on richer brides in church. It is in this tradition you have to look when you view my "crowns".

The aim of this project (besides having fun and testing my own skills) was to make a collection that also could be exhibited during and after this year of jubilee. And during the first month of 2010 it was exhibited in two exhibitions in midSweden, House of form and design in Hällefors (Formens Hus) and Kapitän Design studio in Örebro. And at the moment one of the diademes, "the steeltiara" (together with two smaller versions), is exhibited in the museum of Architecture in Stockholm.

So, now I will show you the diademes and tell you a bit about them, in the same order as I resigned them. The construction project started late 2008 and finished in february 2010.


No 1:;The Cameo diadem in resign

my version of Cameo diademe
seen on my model Josefine.

Also called the "brides tiara" when it is often used by the swedish royal family in there weddings. And this year, when Crownprincess Victoria married, it was a huge speculation in media, if she would wear it or not? Even me and my project had media coverage on the matter. (And of caurse I guessed she would wear this one for here wedding, it´s tradition, but I did hear my heart beat before she got out of that car)

This diadem was the first I made since I guessed there could be a royal wedding any time soon, and why not during 2010, when I had should have my project up and running. It is also one of my favourites since it is made entirely out of gold, cameos and white oriental pearls I would guess. The reason I could resign this is I once found resin cameos on the internet. They pictured fairies and butterflies and I thought they were really good symbols of what took place when to common women became queens on two thrones, remarkable fortune, I would say.

This one is said to come from Josephine but there is no actual  record of this one in her jewlery listings. We do know that her daughter Hortense wore it, as there is a small miniature of her wearing it that was probably sold by Sothebys (source of image is unknown to me)

What we do know is that Josephine loved the cameos and she actually asked her brother to bring lots home from Italy, never mind the cost of them. And cameos became a big fashion among the ladies of Paris in the early 1800:s. Along with the diamonds, emeralds and amethysts they quite dominated the jewlery for a while.

here I´m creating the many palmettes
for the cameo diademe

For me the tricky part was to translate the jewled ornaments into something  made out of brass wire. I realized that it would be nearly impossible, but I decided to make a mould for the palmett and then trust that the cameo settings together with the palmette and the pearlstring in the bottom would keep the project together and that it, with these 3 elements together, would resemble the original.

Katarina, Josefine and Linn poses for my royal theme "A true fairytail". Photographer is Evelina Cary and hair and make is done by Åsa Andrén. Crowns and styling by me

It took me nearly two weeks to build this and I had to hurry in the end to get it done in time to photograph in Örebro with my models and team. I would like to thank them all for a wonderful job in Örebro in june 2009.

No 2; the Amethyst parure in resign

This one I made during the winter of 2009. I sat in my new studio and enjoyed myself with the sparkles from glass jewels that came from Germany and austrian chrystal. In original this one is not actually a diadem or crown, it is just made in the typical manner of the era, were a braclet or two could build up to a small crown by the use of a separete setting. So this is a parure with necklases, earrings and bracelets that can be transformed into bandeaus and a small crown. Amethysts and dimonds in combination became quite fashionable during the emperial era. In fact brightly all sharply coloured stones together with bright diamonds were the fashion of the day. And the way to wear them was by the principal "more is more" so lets wear one or two bandeaus topped by a tiara or two and the add one or two combs in the back....

This one was the easiest one to manage becaurse of its distinct lack of ornamentation. It has only one what lookes like to C:s turened away from each other and then the amethyst settings with diamonds. The trick here was to set all chrystals together and then manage to make the "C:s" resemble the original. The C:s are in fact a kind of knot if you look up close.

In original it came to Sweden with Josephine in her marriage to Oscar I and it is known as the Amethyst parure often worn by crownprincess Victoria. Once it belonged to Josephine, empress of France. And when she divorced Napoleon she kept all her jewlery and it was handed on to her children when she died. This one via her son and then to her grand daughter Josephine.

Here you see the original worned by crownprincess Victoria. I think it is one of her favourites as she often wears it.

No 3; The Steel tiara in resign

This one is one of my absolute favourites in the collection, original as well as my own resign (this one is now in an exhibition in Stockholm). It is beautiful in original and it was a pleachure to make it, even though it was one of the trickiest (only the saphires were worse)
I made this one in january 2010 and it was extreamly cold outside with so much snow that I could not leave the house somedays. I had to give my studio up and sit inside in the kitchen since it was to cold.

The story of the steel tiara is really interesting. I already  told you about the diamond fashion and how the ladies of Paris loved to sparkle from diamonds on their forehead. Well, during all of the wars Napoelon put France in, the demand for money to the army increaced and lots of the jewlery were sold to become canons and food for the army. Needless to say, the demand for sparkle did not decreas so an invention was in place - faceted steel... A german firm came up with the faceted steel and soon they sold more steel than any firm ever sold diamonds.  This diadem, in original is made entirely of brass and faceted steel that sparkles like diamonds. It is the less expensive in material but the most expensive seen to crafts and skill of the jewler. You can often see Victoria wear this for events and I think it is one of her favourites.

My version is made by the real stuff as I also worked in brass with faceted steel and iron together with some aluminum and vintage glassbeads. I even came across som genuine faceted steel beads that I mounted in the center and base of the palmett.

Once I stumbled over a funny story: I do not think it is true but never the less... It is said that Queen Silvia, as a newcomer to the castle was looking around in rooms and cupboards, the way one would if one ended up with a castle. In one of the cupboards she found this steeltiara lying around. It had been missing in the collection...

No 4; The Leuchtenberg saphires in resign

A "devlish" one this one was! I knew it from the start, that this one was the greatest challenge of them all. For mainly two reasons. 1) In original it is like a "carpet" of diamond set ornaments in white gold, hopeless to catch all the small details with wire work. 2) I do not like to work in the color blue, that much.


So, in trying to resign it and give it some justice I started of with the saphire settings in german vintage glass, but this time I had a difficulty in mounting the chrystals in a nice way. I ended up cutting candleholders of aluminum into small squares that I could glue on the back side of the chrystals to hold them together. Not a perfect way but ok in the tradition I follow.

As for the "diamond wall", it was impossible to imitate that with wire. Today I would maybe have chosen a totally different mode of operation but at the time I picked out the most important and dominant ornament and tried to imitate it into a more minimalistic look

When I finaly came to the point of lining the tiara with velvet I started to like it a bit more. It did sparkle amaizingly when worned on a head and it was kind of neat. It is still not one of my favourites but it is kind of neat.

In original it is one of the most precious in the royal collection and it is one of the parures inherited by Josephine, princess of Leuchtenberg from her mother,  Augusta Amalia of Leuchtenberg.
This diadem is often seen on our Queen Silvia during greater events.

No 5; The diamond and ruby diadem of Désirée in resign

Finally, the last one in the collection. I finished it in march 2010 and then sent out a pressrelease about the collection.

For this one as well as the steel tiara and the saphires I used my fansite on Facebook to let people follow the job on a daily basis. It was much appreciated and I have had lots of people looking in on the project.

This one was one of the diadems most longed for by me. I was all the time looking forward to resigning this one and I think it was mainly three factors. 1) The bling; It could look really nice with its leafs covered with sparkly chrystals. 2) The herritage; It was the only remaing diademe from Queen Désirée and 3) The story; It had a really exiting history to it.

Let me tell you a little about it. You remember that Napoleon dumped Désirée for Josephine? Well, this she did not really get over that easily and when she heard about it in a letter from him, she wrote him back:

"You have made my life a misery,

and I am yet weak enough to

forgive you."

Later on she met the handsome marschal of Napoleon, Jean Baptiste Bernadotte and she was told that he was probably the only man that could meachure up to Napoleon. It is said that it was this fact that made her pick Bernadotte and nothing else. And maybe he thougt the same. To pick up the former girlfriend of his rival, now that would be some kind of triumph. 

Well, they got married in Paris long before they became royals of Sweden and in the year 1804 they were invited to the coronation of Napoleon and his wife Josephine to become Emperor and empress of France. For this occasion Jean Baptiste ordered this parure with diadem to be made for his wife Désirée. 

the pompous coronation of Napoleon and his empress Josephine. The hole of  Notre Dame in Paris was redecorated to resemble a roman temple fit for an emperor. In the picture you can also see the mother of Napoleon, Letizia on the balcony, and she was not even there due to shame for her sons megalomania.

So, what do you think happened? She did not go to the coronation! She had a "cold" and stayed at home an missed out on her exes coronation... 

She did go to the ball afterwards though and I wonder if she wore this lovely garland of wineleaves and grapes of ruby?

I think it is a lovely story of a women scorned and for some reason I can picture myself in her situation. And for that reason this one was a pleasure to resign. With maple leaves instead of wine- and austrian chrystal in red and clear instead of rubys and diamonds. In this one I also soldered for the first time. Not in silver but in tin to get the story on trinket right.  

The original is no longer in Sweden, but in Denmark as we are relatives on the royal side. It is worned by princess Mary now a days and it is rebuilt. The original one was a simple garland but now they have used the corsage (brooch) to make it more of a diademe.

So this was all about my resign project and I thank you for spending your time with me and the diademes. I hope it amused you and gave you some knew knowledge? If you want to get in contact with me for, some reason, you can email me at:

britten.toftarp@kronmakaren.se

As a small finish I can tell you that the correct term for these kinds of head jewlery would be diademes as they are going almost around the head. The expression tiara is mainly used in english and is a smaller version that mounts on the forehead. Often english speaking uses the word tiara to descibe all kinds of diademes or tiaras.

And, a tiara or diademe was never used by an unmarried women in the 1800:s. If you were a debutant you could wear a small garland of flowers, but never a tiara.  If you see young women in paintings wearing a tiara, they are married. Just so you know ;-)

The end