Brooch Warfare from a WWII Vet
July 16, 2018 9:21 AM   Subscribe

Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith has, among other passions (not limited to corgis) , a love of brooches. She has an impressive collection: Some simply ornamental, and some with more significant meaning.

Often she wears them to send particular messages - for example

"Hi, Canada!"

As we know, there was a highly commented on and well-protested visit to London by The President, and Queen Elizabeth used that visit to (possibly) (probably) throw some royal shade by way of subtle messages that he will never decode into her choice of brooches.

Samurai Knitter, on twitter has an extended thread on this, which you can read here.

And there is some further discussion via the #BroochDecoderRing hashtag

The discussion has links to two of the brooches in question - and you can also find them here and here
posted by FritoKAL (24 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite
 
Liberals turning into monarchists to own Trump was a turn I definitely should have expected by this point.
posted by Space Coyote at 9:38 AM on July 16, 2018 [11 favorites]


I love the Queen's Jewel Vault and its sister site the Royal Order of Sartorial Splendour; not so much for the royals themselves, but the shiny things they often wear.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:38 AM on July 16, 2018 [9 favorites]


But yes, Her Majesty has been throwing some serious shade with her brooch game this week.

You know who else speaks through pins? Madeline Albright. (Previously on Mefi.)
posted by elsietheeel at 9:42 AM on July 16, 2018 [9 favorites]


Liberals turning into monarchists to own Trump was a turn I definitely should have expected by this point.

Nobody with the physical strength or political power to literally or metaphorically sock that asshole in the jaw is actually doing it, so we'll have to make do with passive aggressive jewelry statements by 90 year-old figureheads, I suppose.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:43 AM on July 16, 2018 [48 favorites]


I mean, I'm not sure that going "Wow, Queen Elizabeth is throwing some real brooch shade here. This is delightful." makes someone a monarchist, but I guess you could interpret it that way.

The discussion also covers, by the way, the (racist) brooch worn by Princess Michael of Kent (who is a racist) at the first royal luncheon attended by Meghan (formerly Markle), Duchess of Sussex. So secret messages from royals via pins goes in both the "shaming an asshat" and "being an asshat" directions.

Should it be arsehat if we're discussing people from the UK?
posted by FritoKAL at 10:18 AM on July 16, 2018 [19 favorites]


Love the idea of brooches as bat signals, but also really sad that one of the most powerful women in the world has to communicate via clothing choices, rather than by using her words.
posted by basalganglia at 10:20 AM on July 16, 2018 [12 favorites]


Princess Michael of Kent's racist brooch. It wasn't some elaborately coded thing, it is literally a racist caricature portrait sculpture.
posted by Nelson at 10:22 AM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


rather than by using her words.

I think this has somewhat less to do with her being a woman and most everything to do with the UK's monarchy's tradition of Officially Not Having Opinions (or Emotions).
posted by elsietheeel at 10:24 AM on July 16, 2018 [19 favorites]


Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas

Elizabeth is most certainly not the queen of Ireland. I think you meant Northern Ireland, which is a separate country.
posted by fshgrl at 10:28 AM on July 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


Good lord, I read the first 5 words and wondered if it was London Bridge
posted by infini at 10:30 AM on July 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


Re: QE's title - my bad. I copied the wrong one and ended up using the old pre-1953 title.
posted by FritoKAL at 10:35 AM on July 16, 2018


If we are going to do it correctly:
Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
posted by adamvasco at 10:35 AM on July 16, 2018 [10 favorites]


I think an interesting thing about her wearing the Canadian Sapphire Jubilee brooch to meet the Belgians is that it was completely lost on her dress. If she was choosing a brooch to compliment her outfit (which she usually does) then she certainly has a plethora to choose from. She picked that brooch for a reason.

Ditto the one the day before from the Obamas. That brooch is NOT the Queen's style, it's not her jewel type, and state gifts like that are usually worn once at a state dinner and then put away (unless Her Maj is really really enchanted with them). But she pulled it out for a reason, too.

I like to think that the reason she wore her mother's palm leaf brooch to meet DJT was because it was one of the Queen Mum's favorites and QEII got through the meeting by secretly imagining what her mum would have to say about and/or to Trump.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:48 AM on July 16, 2018 [8 favorites]


The suit she wore to tea is the exact same one she wore to open Parliament after the post-Brexit reorganization. "I think this is now her Official Outfit of Don't Wanna."

The Queen got game.
posted by arcticseal at 11:48 AM on July 16, 2018 [3 favorites]


I breathlessly hoped fully expected that the popularity of the TV series The Crown would start a trend in sparkly brooches. I'm sorry that it has not taken hold yet, except in my own jewelry box.

It would be the first time I was ever trendy.
posted by angiep at 1:38 PM on July 16, 2018 [6 favorites]


The Queen's Jewel Vault did a series of posts about The Crown that were very interesting. Even more fascinating was this Daily Beast article about the people who make the fake jewels for The Crown.

(Gee I sure know a lot about sparkly jewelry when I don't own any nor wear anything other than a silver pendant with 40 hash marks on it.)
posted by elsietheeel at 2:30 PM on July 16, 2018


I am loving the brooch shade. It warms the cold cockles of my sad heart.
posted by corb at 3:29 PM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


I don't even know exactly what's it's supposed to mean other than "I only wear this to funerals"?

She actually wears that one a lot. It's a big brooch with a lot of stones, some of which are decently sized, so maybe she thought the sparklies would impress DJT.

If I was trying to impress anyone else I'd probably choose Cullinan III & IV, but Trump would probably think they were paste or something.
posted by elsietheeel at 4:01 PM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's also possible that it wasn't the Queen of England wearing the Canadian Sapphire Jubilee brooch, but the Queen of Canada. There is a particularly deep relationship between Belgium and Canada due the the role Canadian soldiers played in both WWI & WWII. I know as a Canadian in Belgium during the 90s, it was very difficult for me to pay for my own beer anywhere in that country.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 4:22 PM on July 16, 2018 [13 favorites]


Perhaps the empire should acquire The Narmer Palette in order to form a really cool smiting broach.
posted by clavdivs at 5:09 PM on July 16, 2018


Mod note: Edited the post text to fix the Ireland/Northern Ireland error; carry on.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:01 PM on July 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


No mention of Madeline Albright yet? Nowhere near the heavy artillery (diamonds, gold, platinum) of Madge's collection, and Secretary Albright isn't necessarily subtle in her choices. Interesting to see powerful women using such symbolism.
posted by theora55 at 8:59 PM on July 16, 2018


God, this is good! I love royal jewelry bloggers. They're so interesting and get into some great history. The Order of Sartorial Splendor is my favorite.
posted by apricot at 9:04 PM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


Oh shit! The outfit she wore to meet Trump was the same one she wore to open Parliament after the Brexit vote, as has been noted, but the first time she wore it her hat had a yellow ribbon, making her outfit Euro colors!
posted by apricot at 10:26 PM on July 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


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