Niko Haagenson, a content creator and makeup artist in New York, got a tiara in high school during her freshman year. “This was me pre-transition, and I wanted to rebel against the whole culture surrounding the classic homecoming court by being a (formerly) male homecoming princess,” she says. “I campaigned my ass off and probably won, and when I went out on the football field to accept my win and was booed by almost the entire stadium, which I took as a win while blowing kisses and waving.” 

Finding that same tiara hidden in her childhood bedroom recently felt like a full-circle moment: some of the people who once booed Haagenson are now in her DMs asking for makeup advice. She’s also placed her old tiara firmly back on her head. “I feel like a tiara is worn best with a simple outfit, as it makes it a little ironic,” she says. “The tiara should be doing most of the talking.” 

Haagenson’s approach to the everyday tiara is similar to Paris Hilton’s. As the great-granddaughter of the Hilton hotel mogul once said, “Always act like you have an invisible tiara on your head.” But in the Y2K era, tiaras were not always invisible. In 2001, The Princess Diaries came out, and everyone wanted to be the princess of Genovia. Hilton would wear a tiara on a night out, along with the likes of Nicole Richie and Courtney Love. Vivienne Westwood was fond of tiaras. So too was Madonna, who wore one worth 5 million dollars in a 1995 Versace Campaign, and another – an Edwardian antique – at her wedding to Guy Ritchie in 2002.

But, of course, predating the adoption of tiaras in pop culture is their history in high society. Jewelry historian Geoffrey Munn says that tiaras are traditionally the highest form of dress. “The signal for the wearing of them in the past was ‘full evening dress’ in the invitation,” he says. “This meant women wore dresses to the ground, and tiaras.” The tiara has, to this day, lingered on as a tradition for many brides, harkening back to the time when high society women would go to the altar wearing their family tiara, before swapping it for the bridegroom’s family tiara once they had married. 

 “I feel like a tiara is worn best with a simple outfit, as it makes it a little ironic. The tiara should be doing most of the talking” 

Munn says the idea that tiaras were emblems of rank, reserved for princesses and Duchesses, is misconstrued. “If you were invited to one of these receptions, you would wear a tiara because the occasion demanded it, not the rank,” he says. “So, tiaras have been democratic for quite a long time.” That said, there was a time before paparazzi and social media when royalty, according to Munn, would make a point of wearing this high-status dress while out in the public eye as a “flashing of rank”. 

In 2015, the tiara experienced a high-fashion revival, with three different takes sent down the Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton and Miu Miu spring runways. A year later, in 2016, Rihanna teased her Anti album with a selfie in a pair of gilded, crystal-encrusted Dolce & Gabbana headphones, complete with an actual crown. With all this recent talk online of 2026 “being 2016,” it seems tiaras have been caught up in the nostalgia. Olivia Rodrigo wore one to celebrate her 23rd birthday with friends in February, and Jennifer Behr just released a line of “everyday tiaras” with British Vogue’s contributing fashion features editor, Julia Hobbs.

I called Hobbs before her flight to Milan Fashion Week, as she was packing a boob tube, jeans and a shaggy coat. I had to ask: Are you bringing your tiaras? “I have them all right here with me because I’m trying to wear them on rotation,” she told me. There are three tiaras in the collection. The Julia is the “subtle” one Hobbs named after her niece and wears with “sweatpants and uggs.” The extra sparkly Lily tiara is named after Lily Allen, who’s recently been spotted wearing it, and the Elodie is the biggest one, worn by Alexander Skarsgård on Saturday Night Live.

The idea for the everyday tiara collection came to Hobbs while scouring the internet for a vintage, subtle tiara. “All roads led to Jennifer Behr,” she says. “I would end up on Pinterest, and her tiaras would keep coming up, but I had to ask myself, ‘Am I, joyously single, about to buy a bridal tiara to wear with old skinny jeans and battered ballet flats?’” The answer was no, so she worked with Behr to create rock and roll reminiscent tiaras instead. She threw a launch party at Climax Books in New York, where everyone had on a tiara. “Tiaras are just fun – it’s almost an excuse to take a selfie, and be a passenger princess,” Hobbs says. 

“Tiaras are just fun – it’s almost an excuse to take a selfie, and be a passenger princess”

The yearning for 2016, or at least the romanticised version of it, clearly has something to do with the still small-scale tiara revival. So too does the rise of the medieval aesthetic and the virality of the 2025 Louvre heist (and meme-ified stolen gems). There’s also young people’s growing desire to inject whimsy into their day-to-day. “I have one tiara that I have had since I was around 8 years old,” says Zoe Velasco, a student at Arizona State University. “My father bought it for me for about 13 dollars at Walmart, and I remember thinking it was the most luxurious thing in the world.” She now wears it to school, with jeans and a t-shirt, or on outings with friends. “It adds a level of intrigue,” she says. 

Soon, Anne Hathaway will return to our screens for The Princess Diaries 3, and some will have their tiaras at the ready. Velasco started wearing her childhood tiara again as a reminder of the days that felt more idealistic and hopeful. “The world is so crazy and scary that it’s an easy means of escapism,” she says. “Wearing a tiara is a simple way to tell the world, and yourself, that you are light, fun, confident and beautiful. Who wouldn't want to feel that way?” To wear a tiara in the early 2000s was a public declaration that you have princess (or main character) mentality. Arguably, that’s the defining mentality of today, and an everyday tiara just cements it. 

I sent Munn a photo of Lily Allen and Suki Waterhouse in the Jennifer Behr x Julia Hobbs everyday tiaras. “I doubt this is a true revival……sorry,” he replied. Still, that won’t stop some from being queen for a day – even if it’s just through posting tiara selfies on Instagram. “After I rediscovered my tiara, I knew I had to bring it with me to New York,” Haagenson says. “I brushed out my wig, put on a Gabbriette-inspired eye, threw on the tiara and took my picture.”