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The Princess and the Pearl

Kate Middleton’s Garden Party Outfit Includes a Touching Tribute to Queen Elizabeth

The Buckingham Palace event marks the Princess of Wales’s third time wearing the heirloom in 2026.

Cailey PetschHealth and Beauty Intern

PublishedMay 8, 2026, 5:26 PM EDT

UpdatedMay 8, 2026, 5:26 PM EDT

Updated May 8, 2026, 5:26 PM EDTPublished May 8, 2026, 5:26 PM EDT

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Catherine, Princess of Wales, wore a treasured piece from Queen Elizabeth II’s collection for a garden party on Friday.

On May 8, Kate Middleton, 44, and her husband, Prince William, 43, hosted a garden party at Buckingham Palace. This was the palace’s second garden party of 2026; King Charles and Queen Camilla had hosted the first earlier in the week, on Wednesday.

Known for incorporating heirlooms into her elegant, timeless style, Kate honored tradition at the garden party by wearing Queen Elizabeth’s drop pearl earrings for the third time this year.

​The shimmery Bahrain earrings complemented Kate’s black-and-cream Self-Portrait separates for the event, which included a tailored three-quarter-sleeved jacket with black buttons and a swishy polka-dot skirt.

The chic earrings are in frequent rotation for the Princess of Wales this spring, with Kate previously wearing them at the Westminster Commonwealth Day service on March 9 and at Saint George’s Chapel on Easter Sunday, according to InStyle.

William, for his part, looked equally fashionable, wearing a formal morning-dress ensemble consisting of a black tailcoat, gray waistcoat, rose-colored tie, gray trousers, and black top hat.

The couple attended just one Buckingham Palace garden party in 2025, which was held on May 20, nearly a year before this week’s events. In the 2024 season, Kate did not attend or host any garden parties due to her battle with cancer.

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The earrings Kate wore for the occasion represent a lasting symbol, connecting Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, and Princess Kate through royal history.

​The Court Jeweler website notes that the pearls were among many other pieces of jewelry given as a wedding gift at the 1947 marriage of the then Prince Philip Mountbatten and Princess Elizabeth. Seven pearls were gifted in a shell to the late queen by Hakim of Bahrain. Elizabeth later had them crafted into earrings with baguette-cut diamonds.

Princess Diana notably wore them to a 1982 banquet at Hampton Court Palace, several decades before the woman who married her son would incorporate them into her own style.

With three generations—Elizabeth, Diana, and Kate—wearing these earrings, their symbolism endures.

Pearls often appear in Kate’s choice of accessories at events. At the April 21 reception marking what would have been Queen Elizabeth’s 100th birthday, the princess wore Elizabeth’s layered pearl necklace at Buckingham Palace.

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Cailey PetschHealth and Beauty Intern

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