Flashback Friday: Silvia and Her Tiara Hair

You didn't think we were going to talk about tiara hair without spending some time on the ladies that do it best, did you? Of course not.

Obviously, that means the Swedish ladies, and the queen of them all in every way, Queen Silvia. You wouldn't have guessed it from her royal debut...

An engaged Silvia Sommerlath, 1976

...but Queen Silvia is the one royal lady with a true sense of adventure when it comes to her evening hair. I suppose it only takes one or two Nobel Prize banquet dinners, at which the photographers come right up and snap from behind you, to realize that you're better off giving them something to focus on.

Over the years, she's given us plenty of basic tiara 'dos with the volume kicked up to 10 or so.

But she's at her best when she kicks that volume right up to 11. Were all of these good ideas, in hindsight? No, perhaps not. But that just makes it more entertaining for us.

There were cascades of curls and knots and braid-like formations:

And then actual braid formations - "formation" here meaning a truly structural phenomenon...

This is not really what I had in mind when I said ladies can use a discreet plait to help hold a tiara in place.

I suppose it's natural for popular culture to creep in, as unfortunate as that may be when one is a queen through the Star Wars years. The half-Leia pastry formations continued well past the proper galactic time frame, though.

Perhaps they extended long enough to inspire Queen Amidala's look? I wonder what her hair is wrapped around. What's underneath there? Styrofoam? Snacks for later? Is this the original sock bun?

As entertaining as Silvia's hair can be, sometimes there's a real reward back there for those that care to look.

Flowers, sure, why not? You know I'm really talking about the jewels here. Extra strands of pearls and diamonds, brooches (including half of the arrow brooch that pierced Victoria's chignon at her pre-wedding dinner)...because sometimes a tiara is just not enough. In conclusion: I love Queen Silvia. Even though she's toned it down in the last couple years, we'll always have the memories.

Do you have a favorite Silvia tiara 'do?

Photos: Corbis/IBL/BEW/Svenskdam