The Princess of Wales Wears Queen Mary’s Diamond Choker Bracelet at the BAFTAs

On Sunday night at the BAFTAs, the Princess of Wales wore a rarely seen royal jewel known as the Queen Mary Choker Bracelet, a 1920s Art Deco diamond piece associated with Queen Mary and later inherited by Queen Elizabeth II.

The Princess of Wales arrived at the BAFTAs on Sunday night with the Prince William wearing a blush pink gown and a tight edit of diamonds from the royal collection. Alongside the Greville Chandelier Earrings, she chose a second piece with a quieter reputation and a longer history, the Queen Mary Choker Bracelet.

The jewel is linked to Queen Mary, wife of King George V. Composed of diamond bars in an Art Deco design, it was created in the 1920s and is known to have been worn by Queen Mary in a portrait from that period. The piece has also carried a question that adds to its intrigue, with no clear record of whether it was originally conceived as a choker or as a bracelet, even though it has become more familiar in recent years worn at the wrist.

After Queen Mary’s death in 1953, the piece disappeared from view for more than two decades. It resurfaced on the wrist of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in portraits marking her 75th birthday, according to the Royal Watcher. Following her death in 2002, the jewel passed to Queen Elizabeth II.

In the last decade, it has taken on a new life through the Princess of Wales, who first wore it as a bracelet at the Chinese state banquet in 2015, paired with the Lotus Flower Tiara and a red gown. The bracelet has since appeared on a small number of formal occasions, including a charity gala in 2016, a state visit to Paris in 2017, and the Diplomatic Corps reception at Buckingham Palace in 2018. It returned again in November last year at the Royal Variety Performance, worn with an off the shoulder gown in emerald.

At the BAFTAs, the bracelet’s presence did what the best heirlooms do. It anchored the look with history rather than novelty, and it signalled a consistent approach to jewellery dressing, built around a handful of major pieces chosen for the most formal rooms and the most photographed evenings.