Equally magnificent as the jewels are the histories that belong to each tiara, or `fender bender’ as Theresa, Marchioness of Londonderry fondly referred to hers links of london jewellery. Lady Londonderry, in fact, spent the better half of the Coronation of Edward VII trying to get her family heirlooms out of the facilities at Westminster Abbey, where she had dropped them.
Edward Burne Jones once said that, if you didn’t want to swallow a jewel when you saw it, it probably wasn’t a very good jewel Charm Bracelet. The current exhibition Tiaras at the V&A, showing over 200 tiaras belonging to royalty and to stars, as well as many European aristocrats, will not only make you wish the diamonds (or the `stonking great big rocks’ as one overwhelmed American visitor exclaimed Sweetie Bracelet) were edible, but will immediately throw you into a world of such visual and sensual intensity, you might need a large drink to recover links of london sweetie bracelet.