H
eavy is the head that
wears the crown, or
so it would seem in
the fi rst season of The
Crown. In the Netfl ix series, both
Elizabeth and her father practice
walking slowly around their bed-
chambers before their coronations,
balancing the bulky St. Edward’s
Crown on their heads.
The crown we actually see ac-
tors Claire Foy and Jared Harris lift
laboriously was made by Juliette
Designs, a London fi rm run by Te-
resa and Marek Tomas. Their replica
took years to perfect and mirrors
the 17th-century original down to
the stitching on its ermine — except
instead of 22K gold and 444 antique
gemstones, it’s made of base metals
set with glass, resin, and Swarovski
crystal.Royally Challenging
Juliette Designs’ version was not all
that heavy, but the original certainly
is. “The coronation crown is only
used at the moment of coronation
and never, ever after that,” Teresa
told me. “After the coronation, after
the Archbishop places the crown
on the head of the monarch, it’s re-
placed by the Imperial State Crown.”
None of the royal crowns are de-
signed for lengthy wear, but espe-
cially the St. Edward’s. “The weight
in gold alone is fi ve pounds,” Teresa
says. “By the time you put all the
stones in it, it’s very heavy.”
It’s also challenging to build.
“The coronation crown takes a lot
of doing,” Teresa Tomas says. “My
husband makes that one. It’s quite
wonderful.”Even more diffi cult is the Impe-
rial State Crown. “The front of that
crown has what looks like a blob of
blood with a cabochon stuck in it,”
Teresa says. “We had to learn how
to make that ourselves because no-
body knows how to make that.”
After experimenting with vari-
ous materials for their crowns, the
couple settled on resin, mounting
a large oval glass cabochon on theTo Copy the
Crown
The very select specialty of
Juliette Designs By Cathleen McCarthy
other side. A specialist replicates the
famous royal diamonds like the Koh-
i-Noor and Cullinan, but the rest of
the gemstones are purchased from
Swarovski and the Czech Republic
fi rm Preciosa.
By the time the creators of The
Crown approached them, JulietteThis replica of St. Edward’s crown was
featured in the Netflix series The Crown and
displayed at Winterthur Museum.
PHOTO: COURTESY WINTERTHUR64 LAPIDARY JOURNAL JEWELRY ARTIST
64 McCarthy_ToCopyTheCrown_mayjune20.indd 64 3/17/20 9:43 AM