But for her wealthy fans, Diana’s jewels have become valuable collectors’ items and a very good investment.
Lady Diana Spencer’s fondness for jewelry started early. As a teenager she wore several gold bands from her family on various fingers. On her 16th birthday, her family gave her a gold choker with a “D” pendant. The “D” became her favorite jewelry motif, and her friends bought her another pendant necklace to celebrate her birthday. In 2017, a silver “D” necklace thought to have been owned by Diana was sold at auction for $8,000.
White pearls were a particular favorite throughout her life. When she was 18, she was gifted a three-strand pearl choker, a Spencer family coming-of-age tradition, which she wore frequently (most of Diana’s early jewelry was stolen from her London flat when she was 18). She also enjoyed wearing large “power pearl” studs throughout the 1980s. Kate Middleton shares her mother-in-law’s penchant for pearls, and has been spotted sporting several of Diana’s pearl pieces. She frequently wears Diana’s four-string pearl choker, the famous Collingwood teardrop pearl earrings, (a gift to Diana from Charles on their wedding day in 1981) and her diamond and South Sea pearl earrings.
Princess Diana adored sapphires, reportedly because they complimented her blue eyes. She also had fun with fashion, cheekily wearing priceless pieces in quirky ways, like the time she wore an Art Deco diamond and emerald choker as a bandeau around her forehead. This piece, part of the Delhi Durbar Parure and originally owned by jewel-fiend Queen Mary, had not been seen in public until Catherine, Princess of Wales, wore it at the Earthshot Prize Ceremony in 2022.
Despite her access to a jewelry box most could only dream of, Princess Diana also delighted in wearing costume jewelry. She wore big, chunky necklaces and bracelets when meeting with children, so they could play with her accessories. “I couldn’t get her out of big jewelry,” British Vogue’s Anna Harvey recalled, per Eloise Moran’s The Lady Di Look Book.
As part of her divorce settlement, Diana got to keep the jewelry that she received during her royal days, but by then, she had begun to experiment with cheaper pieces. “She becomes less and less Palacised, from wearing twin sets of pearls to single strings,” The Crown’s costume designer Amy Roberts told Vogue, “and finding her fashion identity through costume jewelry.”
