The touching reason Princess Diana almost never wore this bracelet

So sweet

diana charm bracelet
(Image credit: Getty)

So sweet

Princess Diana wasn’t just a fashion icon in that she wore fabulous dresses, it was more that she put genuine thought into her outfits too, like the time she wore two watches, and why she never wore gloves.

There was one other piece of jewellery that was probably more sentimental to her than all her diamonds and pearls, and that was a gold charm bracelet.

You probably haven’t seen many pics of her wearing it, because it was so precious that she wasn’t keen on wearing it in public.

It was in fact a gold charm bracelet, which was gifted to her by Prince Charles, and for each anniversary for the first ten years of their marriage, he gave her a different charm to add to it.

diana charm bracelet

Getty

These included a miniature of St Paul’s Cathedral, where they got married, a pair of ballet shoes as Diana loved the ballet, a polo cap to represent Charles’ love of polo, a bear, because she was fond of teddy bears, an apple for her love of New York, and also a pig. We’re not sure why tbh, but it must’ve been an inside joke.

But her two favourite charms were probably an H and a W, which Charles gave to her when Prince Harry and Prince William were born. So sweet.

Interestingly, Kate Middleton also has a necklace engraved with Prince George and Princess Charlotte’s names, which we’d like to think is a nice little nod to this family tradition.

Penny Goldstone

Penny Goldstone is the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire, covering everything from catwalk trends to royal fashion and the latest high street and Instagram must-haves.

Penny grew up in France and studied languages and law at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris before moving to the UK for her MA in multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University. She moved to the UK permanently and has never looked back (though she does go back regularly to stock up on cheese and wine).

Although she's always loved fashion - she used to create scrapbooks of her favourite trends and looks, including Sienna Miller and Kate Moss' boho phase - her first job was at MoneySavingExpert.com, sourcing the best deals for everything from restaurants to designer sales.

However she quit after two years to follow her true passion, fashion journalism, and after many years of internships and freelance stints at magazines including Red, Cosmopolitan, Stylist and Good Housekeeping, landed her dream job as the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK.

Her favourite part of the job is discovering new brands and meeting designers, and travelling the world to attend events and fashion shows. Seeing her first Chanel runway IRL at Paris Fashion Week was a true pinch-me moment.