Queen Elizabeth wore a brooch from the Obamas during Trump’s visit. Was she trolling?
Royal observers have read the tea leaves and decided that there was hidden meaning in the jewelry Queen Elizabeth chose to wear when President Donald Trump was in town last week.
Was she using jewels to throw shade, people wondered on social media?
Eagle-eyed fashion observers who keep track of the queen’s purses, hats and other style choices read significance into three brooches she wore during Trump’s stay.
According to People, on Thursday, the day the president arrived, the queen wore a pin given to her by Michelle and Barack Obama during their state visit in 2011.
The queen was seen wearing it as she received the archbishop of Canterbury and the grand imam of Al-Azhar for an audience at Windsor Castle, People reports.
The pin is called the American State Visit Brooch, a vintage brooch shaped like a small green flower fashioned from 14-karat yellow gold, with diamonds and moss agate, according to People.
“The US has given QE jewelry before over the years and I bet her dresser could put hands on any and all of it given five minutes,” tweeted one observer. “But she chose the most SENTIMENTAL piece in the collection, the one that was given OUT OF FRIENDSHIP WITH THE OBAMAS AS PEOPLE.”
According to People, the Obamas chose the brooch from the Tiny Jewel Box store in Washington, D.C. The queen reportedly wore it during the Obamas’ visit at a dinner.
The choice to wear it last week “has been seen by some as a subtle jab at Trump, who was greeted to his U.K. visit by hundreds of thousands of protesters,” writes The Hill.
The Obamas, who are known to be close to Prince William and Prince Harry, visited the United Kingdom several times while in office, according to The Hill.
That wasn’t the only piece of queenly jewelry that jump-started style conspiracy theories, though.
“And what brooch did the Queen wear to have tea with the Trumps? One given to her by her mother ... who wore the same brooch to her father’s funeral,” E! News wrote.
The brooch was the palm-leaf brooch the queen mother wore at the state funeral for King George VI, according to Vanity Fair. It is seen in a iconic photo called “Three Queens in Mourning,” from the funeral, the magazine reports.
The day after Trump visited, on Saturday, the queen wore a sapphire brooch that was a gift from Canada in 2017, according to E!.
“As the theory goes, the choice to wear brooches from two of Trump’s slew of ‘enemies’ — the Obamas and Canada — were intended to annoy the president, as well,” wrote Vanity Fair.
“Of course, while it is entertaining and fun to read too much into this, in all likelihood it’s just a coincidence, given the Queen and the rest of the royals do not, as a practice, comment on political matters. The Palace has refrained from commenting on the theory.”
This story was originally published July 18, 2018 at 10:08 AM.