The Insane Process To Re-Create the Royal Jewels For <i>The Crown</i>

Of all the things Daenerys Targaryen and Queen Elizabeth II have in common, the most surprising might be a jewelry designer. After all, the Game of Thrones warrior queen is known for a choker shaped like a dragon (she is, of course, the mother of three), while Elizabeth's taste is somewhat more reserved. Luckily, award-winning costumer Michele Clapton knows what she's doing.

Clapton, currently at work on the seventh season of Thrones, was faced with an entirely different challenge for The Crown, a 10-part drama (created by Peter Morgan, who wrote The Queen) that charts the early days of Elizabeth II and attempts to uncover the woman beneath the coronet. "You're seeing her as a real person with real emotions," Clapton says. "Few of us think of the impact that becoming queen had on a young woman, and the enormous amount of pressure and responsibility she felt."

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The designer studied hours of archival footage to faithfully reproduce details from key moments, such as Elizabeth's 1953 coronation, when she wore not one but three bejeweled crowns. While Clapton initially found staying true to historic fact to be restrictive, she came to see it as an opportunity. "If you can make those public moments as close to fact as possible, it gives you the freedom to be creative in the private moments," she says.

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Those private moments, like the ones between Elizabeth (Wolf Hall alum Claire Foy), Philip (Matt Smith, former Doctor Who), and their young children, reveal a tender side to Britain's longest-reigning -monarch—and her jewels help tell the story. One bauble re-created for the show is a basket-of-flowers brooch given to the queen by her parents after the birth of Prince Charles; Clapton points out that the actual Elizabeth continues to wear it nearly 70 years later. Likewise, when the newly proclaimed monarch first ventures out after the death of her father George VI, the single adornment to her black outfit is a diamond flame lily brooch she received from the children of Rhodesia on her 21st birthday. The piece encapsulates her sense of duty even in times of personal anguish.

The queen's jewels also throw her dedication to her role into relief against other characters. Clapton fought hard to include Wallis Simpson's elegant Van Cleef & Arpels leaf brooch, a gift to Simpson from Edward VIII when he was unable to spend Christmas with her during the abdication crisis. Though Van Cleef permitted Clapton to replicate the piece only if changes were made from the original design, she says the brooch nevertheless succeeds in conveying a key moment, as well as contrasting Simpson's flamboyance with Elizabeth's conservatism.

Perhaps the greatest conflict the young queen faces is balancing her roles as monarch and wife. As Philip bows before the new queen at Westminster Abbey, the camera lingers on her coronation ring on one hand and her diamond engagement ring on the other. Looking on bitterly, the Duke of Windsor sums up the double life he himself assumes: "Two rings. Two marriages. Two lives."

From: Town & Country