Trying on three antique tiaras in one day.

If you paid close attention to my NYCJAOS Spring 2025 coverage, you’ll know that I had the great pleasure of seeing THREE real antique tiaras at one show! I’ve given you a peek at these beauties, but I also thought they deserved their own post.

We did a general recap about the jewelry I saw at the most recent NYCJAOS show, but there also happened to be such a wealth of magnificent antique tiaras at this event that I decided they deserved their very own post.

I see no need to dilly-dally. Let’s get to the tiaras!

Shall we start with the oldest of the antique tiaras? This Victorian era beauty is from the collection of Legacy London. It features a foliate design with five removable turquoise and diamond brooches.

The leaf itself looks like ivy – a jewelry motif that symbolizes faithfulness and constancy, due to the plant’s penchant for “clinging” to things as it grows. I don’t believe that ivy usually grows beautiful trios of turquoise berries, but I’m not a botanist.

Oh, did you think I wasn’t going to put it on my head? Obviously I put it on my head.

My “running around NYC on a hot day” hairdo doesn’t really do it justice, but I absolutely love how the pop of color from the turquoise really stands out in my dark hair.

This wasn’t the only one of the antique tiaras with a colored gemstone, but it was the only one with turquoise.

One of my favorite elements of this tiara is the back view: once you turn it around, you see that each of the removable ivy brooches has an elaborate openwork design of veining in the back.

Absolutely lovely and so luxurious, given that the back of the piece would rarely have been visible when worn. A sign of true luxury and very thoughtful craftsmanship.

Next up in this bonanza of antique tiaras is this magnificent fairy queen dream of a thing. This unbelievably exquisite Titania-worthy tiara was in the collection of Paul Fisher Jewelry.

The most important thing you need to know about this piece is that those glorious, realistic diamond flowers are set en tremblant. This means that, rather than being solidly attached to the tiara frame, they’re each mounted on a tiny, trembling spring. This creates a gentle motion when the tiara is worn and makes the flowers look like they’re truly alive, caught in a soft breeze.

Look at those details! The carefully sculpted edges of these diamond-set leaves and petals almost feel like they’re in motion already, without the added kinetic effect of the en tremblant mountings.

This one is a true piece of art. I can’t get over the attention to detail.

And yes, I put it on my head!!! Of course I did.

This piece was difficult to photograph, but I did my best. And those little en tremblant springs are no joke…I definitely returned this piece with more than a few strands of my hair now entangled in it.

I promised you three antique tiaras and three antique tiaras you shall have! Last but far from least is this early Art Deco stunner from Courtville Antiques.

This jewel would be more correctly called a diadem: it would have been worn straight across the forehead, rather than on top of the head like a true tiara. This kind of style paired perfectly with the bob hairstyles that came into fashion with the forward-thinking Art Deco era, offering a simplified, modern version of heavy Victorian tiaras.

Thanks to Courtville Antiques, we have quite a lot of information about this beauty: it was created by Italian jeweler Ignazio Staccioli in 1915 and features openwork leaf motifs set with antique-cut diamonds, bordered by intricately cut sapphires in platinum settings.

Even cooler, this piece is a transformer: the central panel can be unclipped and worn as a bracelet! You can see it in this form in Courtville Antiques Autumn/Winter 2024 store magazine, page 6.

And of course, I put it on my head.

A huge thank you to Legacy London, Paul Fisher Jewelry, and Courtville Antiques for letting me play with your glorious antique tairas!!

If you enjoyed this post, you should click here to see more tiaras or here to see other treasures I’ve found during past NYCJAOS shows.

Like this post? Share it!

Related