Here are more photos from King Charles and Queen Camilla’s visit to the Vatican yesterday. I’ll give Cam some credit: if she hadn’t worn that absolutely bonkers headpiece, the meeting and photos would not have gotten this much attention. I believe people were shocked by Camilla’s headpiece, honestly. I’ve looked it up – while it’s traditional for non-Catholic queens to wear a mantilla – the black veil and/or head-covering – it’s not traditional for any queen to wear the veil with this kind of large headpiece. Certainly not with a headpiece which resembles a gothic crown of crows. I’ll give Camilla some credit for it though – it’s metal as f–k. I just don’t think she intended to look so metal. Here are some additional details about Camilla’s goth look:
A standout accessory to her attire, Queen Camilla wore a traditional mantilla headpiece with a long black veil, designed by Philip Treacy and featuring a crown of leaf-shaped pieces. The veil of Queen Camilla’s mantilla included delicate floral embroidery, echoing the botanical inspiration of the ornate piece.
Wearing a black silk dress by Fiona Clare and a Philip Treacy mantilla, Camilla wore the Raspberry Pip Brooch. Shaped like a Georgian cross, the brooch is “originally part of Queen Elizabeth II’s private collection, it’s believed to have been one of the late monarch’s favorites. However, it wasn’t publicly worn for decades — until Queen Camilla revived it during the 2023 Christmas service, becoming the first to showcase it in recent history,” Maxwell Stone of U.K. jewelers Steve Stone told WWD via email.
Interestingly, it was never worn in public by the late Queen, but Camilla often wears it as a tribute to Her late Majesty, who died in 2022. The piece is designed in the shape of a Georgian cross, is set with topaz and diamonds, and is valued at an estimated $53,000, per The Daily Express.
Camilla paired the brooch with an Edwardian pearl necklace that has a romantic link to Charles, Tatler reported. The necklace—which features a diamond clasp—was previously worn by Camilla for her 14th anniversary photo with Charles in 2019, as seen in a photograph taken by Alexi Lubomirski. She also wore the necklace to Royal Ascot in 2016 and to the State Opening of Parliament in 2022.
During the British royal couple’s visit to Vatican City, Queen Camilla wore a second look antithetical to her attire while meeting Pope Leo XIV. Queen Camilla wore a white dress with a flowing coat featuring delicate embroidery.
Re: the pearl necklace, I’m pretty sure that piece once belonged to Charles’s grandmother, the Queen Mum, and as soon as he inherited it, he gave it to Camilla. She wore it often as Duchess of Cornwall, and it seems to be one of her favorite pieces. As for the topaz-and-diamond cross… it’s interesting that QEII never wore it publicly, just as it’s interesting that Camilla has consistently pulled out some never-before-seen or rarely-seen pieces from both the Royal Collection and QEII’s private collection. I don’t hate that, but it’s crazy that there are SO MANY pieces no one has ever seen. Of course, no one was looking at Cam’s jewelry, not with that statement headpiece.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- Pope Leo XIV greets Britain’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla in the St. Damasus Courtyard after a state visit and prayer with him in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, Vatican, on 23 October 2025.,Image: 1047607959, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Stefano Costantino TTL/Avalon
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- Pope Leo XIV and Queen Camilla exit the Apostolic Palace, and in the San Damaso Courtyard will bid farewell to the Regent of the Prefecture of the Papal Household, Reverend Monsignor Leonardo Sapienza; the Vatican City Head of Protocol, Monsignor Javier Domingo Fernandez Gonzalez and Deputy Head of Protocol, Monsignor Lins. Their Majesties will stand as the British and Vatican national anthems play, before departing in the State Bentley. Vatican City 23 Oct 2025,Image: 1047628426, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Maria Laura Antonelli/AGF Foto/Avalon
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- ITALY – POPE LEO XIV BRITAIN S QUEEN CAMILLA AND BRITAINPS KING CHARLES III ARRIVE AT SAN DAMASO COURTYARD UPON A MEETING WITH POPE LEO XIV IN THE VATICAN – 2025/10/23 Italy, Rome, Vatican, 2025/10/23 Britain s Queen Camilla and Britain s King Charles III arrive at San Damaso courtyard upon a meeting with Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican EDITORIAL USE ONLY – NO BOOKS Copyright: xALESSIAxGIULIANIx,Image: 1047646027, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/ALESSIA GIULIANI/Avalon
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- King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrive at the San Damaso Courtyard, in St Peter’s Square, during the state visit to the Holy See. Featuring: King Charles III and Queen Camilla Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Queen Camilla arrives at the San Damaso Courtyard, in St Peter’s Square, during the state visit to the Holy See. Featuring: Queen Camilla Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Queen Camilla arrives at the San Damaso Courtyard, in St Peter’s Square, during the state visit to the Holy See. Featuring: Queen Camilla Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Arrival of British royals King Charles III with Queen Camilla in the Cortile San Damaso to meet Pope Leo XIV Featuring: King Charles III and Queen Camilla Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Marco Iacobucci/IPA/INSTARimages **UK, USA AND AUSTRALIA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Day 2 of King Charles III and Queen Camilla state visit to the Holy See Featuring: Pope Leo XIV receives King Charles III and Queen Camilla Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Simone Risoluti/IPA/INSTARimages **UK, USA AND AUSTRALIA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Day 2 of King Charles III and Queen Camilla state visit to the Holy See Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Simone Risoluti/IPA/INSTARimages **UK, USA AND AUSTRALIA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III and Queen Camilla say goodbye to Pope Leo XIV in the San Damaso Courtyard, in St Peter’s Square, after attending the ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, during the state visit to the Holy See Featuring: King Charles III, Queen Camilla, Pope Leo XIV Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Queen Camilla during a visit to the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican City, during the state visit to the Holy See. The Chapel is where Cardinals traditionally assemble before entering a conclave to elect a new Pope Featuring: Queen Camilla Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Queen Camilla during a visit to the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican City, during the state visit to the Holy See. The Chapel is where Cardinals traditionally assemble before entering a conclave to elect a new Pope Featuring: Queen Camilla Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Queen Camilla during a visit to the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican City, during the state visit to the Holy See. The Chapel is where Cardinals traditionally assemble before entering a conclave to elect a new Pope Featuring: Queen Camilla Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrive for a visit to the Papal Basilica and Abbey of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, in recognition of the King becoming ‘Royal Confrater’ of the Abbey in Rome, Italy, during the state visit to the Holy See. Holy Doors are opened every twenty-five years, during a Jubilee Year, and are symbolic and acting as a point of pilgrimage for those arriving at one of the four Holy Doors at the Papal Basilicas in Rome Featuring: Queen Camilla, King Charles III Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III sits in a specially created seat, displaying his Coat of Arms given as a gift given in honour of becoming Royal Confrater of the Abbey, during his visit to the Papal Basilica and Abbey of St Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy, during the state visit to the Holy See. ‘Confraternity’, offered by the Archpriest of the Basilica, Cardinal James Harvey and Abbot Ogliari, and approved by the Pope, is a recognition of spiritual fellowship Featuring: King Charles III Where: Rome, Italy When: 23 Oct 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
I could tell it was Treacy…as I’m very familiar with his work via/McQueen & he has a distinctive style…this reminds me of Kate’s Coronation tiara dipped in Black
Aghhh she’s cosplaing the book of revelation! Shes one of the horseman of the apocalypse, specifically Death. Or she’s super into Spooky Month.
She’s cosplaying Moira Rose 😂
The eyebrows were definitely done by Kate
In other words, the late Queen did not want to wear that. style. She had the simple mantilla. Camilla is so not like the late Queen as far as wardrobe. the top of the headpiece looks like saw blades.
So these are leaves!!?? From what tree? I thought they were baby bats. 2 of them have little white eyes.
Looks like leaves from a tree that Tim Burton would create for his weird movie creations lol.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Seems to me like he punked her. This looked atrocious
Camz looking horrible and hypocritical, as ususal
The problem is not the headpiece, the problem is the poisonous head under the headpiece.
Philip Treacy’s work is great and as a fellow Irish person I like to think he’s poking fun at the BRF with his designs for them.
You may be on to something. Very subversive.
I have long suspected Philip Treacy of despising either fashion, women in general, or rich women in particular.
If his pieces are supposed to be funny, ok, am I the only one not in on the joke? (That would track, I can be pretty clueless.)
But seriously, given how many of the hats and fascinators he has put various royals, aristos, and celebs in that are freakishly ugly and sometimes aggressively dangerous, I am baffled as to why people continue to buy his work.
I always think of the wedding hats for the York sisters, and the whole “hat glued to forehead, obscuring eyes, complete with long pointy sticks” thing that reached its peak with that bizarre weaponized forehead bumper Victoria Beckham wore to Bill & Kate’s wedding.
I totally agree with this take, ZB.
He is punking Camilla here and I approve.
i admit i love the headpiece. it just doesn’t it the occasion, and camilla can’t pull it off.
I love the headpiece as a costume for the witchy season. I have a huge witch hat with the brim covered in faux black feathers. Got it at the Claire’s outlet. Love it. For meeting the pope though? LOL.
Can’t believe this was professionally designed. It looks like something that a teen who is trying to be edgy assembles for their Halloween costume,
It looks like a charred laurel wreath ..highly inappropriate. Do look up Queen Elizabeth Vatican visits with different popes ..it was all flowing veils and full skirts but she wore a tiara to hold the veil . But Diana with the Pope looked like a work of art , tall and graceful in all black, skirt the right length and a tastefully draped black lace mantilla framing her lovely face . No jagged leaves or diamond tiara . I dont think horrible Kate has swooped into the Vatican yet with her rictus grin and jazz hands ..spare us that . Her funeral looks are bad enough
Hmm…they still look like birds to me.
That she wore it says it all about Camilla.. Who on Earth would think it’s appropriate? Camilla, apparently
This is what gets me. It’s so disrespectful. But what else to expect from a cheating ho who thinks farts are funny?
the problem is the contrast between this look and Camilla’s Home Counties Hausfrau styling the rest of the time, throughout all the decades in which she’s worn whatever was on the bedroom floor, or the top of the laundry basket. I mean… when Meghan wore couture a few weeks ago in Paris, it was WOW. She could pull it off, she had the poise, bearing, conviction, to live in her own skin, for years, to make choices that reflected her sense of occasion and her sense of self. You can’t take Bicester Village off season to the Vatican. Either you go as a penitent pedestrian and wait outside St Peter’s for the public prayers and mumble along with the unwashed but faithful, or, they let you in the exalted inner sanctum and you wear couture. Camilla really isn’t either of these things. She’s from the mushy middle, sort of aristo-adjacent but fundamentally middle class. Diana knew what to do. The Queen knew what to do. There was a similar moment when Princess Anne was introduced to the King of Spain. It’s a known quantity. Sophie tried to replicate that kind of obeisance when she happened to run into Charles at a county fair — of all places — and it looked ridiculous. That’s how she looks here. Grand theatrical gestures out of context look silly. Keep it simple. Really.
Philip Treacy hates Camilla. Got it.
The headpiece itself is bad enough, but the length of the mantilla was also a poor choice. She’s got terrible posture and doesn’t wear any foundation garments or use darting on the dress to nip in her waist, and having the bottom of the mantilla hit at that spot just makes her look even thicker and squatter. It’s so unflattering, but I guess it’s the silhouette she deserves.
Ivanka Trump must be livid! Camilla has outdone her Bride of Beetlejuice get up from her Vatican Visit, although she probably remains as the only one to wear a see-through dress to meet a Pope. At least Camilla spared us that
It’s giving what Livia Soprano wore to Tony’s wedding, so that tracks.
I didn’t even notice that her dress was silk or that the veil had embroidery on it. I just saw a great Halloween costume this year where I just have to take a Farah Fawcett wig, glue a crown of crows on a black veil and throw on a shapeless black dress, put on an exorbitant amount of orange makeup and pout like I just took a bite out of a lemon.
I’m waiting for the articles complaining about the extremely expensive cost of her jewelry to meet the Pope. Meghan essentially wears the same jewelry to do something and they give us a complete tally of how much her jewelry cost, including her wedding rings. So I expect the same for Camilla and the other royal wives or any other woman who is wealthy.
Well we got the brooch price anyway and it and the necklace have to be the most expensive pieces.
To wear this Wiltshire witch look for a meeting with the head of the catholic church is a choice. Pope Bob must be a man of extrem selfcontrol to not burst out laughing.
She looks like a witch😕
Then why does it look like a Dollarama purchase?
I would love to sit down with the people who manage the royal jewellery collections/archives, both the ones owned by the crown and the ‘private’ ones. The history of the pieces is absolutely fascinating.
Alongside that, the monarchy needs to be abolished and the ill-gotten loot redistributed but while they’re still clinging on I’d like to meet the people behind the scenes.
So hilarious but annoying that this article keeps calling Cammy’s dementor headdress a “mantilla”. It’s not though. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Google “mantilla”. I rest my case.
That was my first thought reading the article – that is not a “traditional mantilla”!
We’re having an early Halloween party tomorrow night in work. I’m going to spend my morning tomorrow running around putting this outfit together. With the addition of a cigarette and a bottle of gin. Going to be the scariest bitch ever 🤣🤣
I’m not a Camilla fan. She’s a homewrecker and a manipulator.
She doesn’t look…. well to me. She looks ill. Not sure what is going on with her, but I believe she’s a longtime heavy smoker and she gets sinus infections a lot goes hand in hand with smoking (I used to get sinus and upper resp infections ALL THE TIME when I was a smoker MANY years ago).
It does look like Cams sobered up to see Pope Leo. With her Medusa headdress.
Headpiece aside, what is with the blackened eyebrows?! I don’t remember her ever having her brows tinted that dark before?
For one of the state visit she had dark eyebrows penciled in. Maybe when they want to France? It does look odd but she has done it before.
The problem isn’t the head-piece. Zendaya could have pulled it off and somehow made it look modest. The problem is the hag wearing it.
My first thought was that she’s going to charge like a bull, lower her head and rip somebody’s entrails out.
Phillip Treacy has jokes 🤭 I would have loved to hear the conversation between the two of them regarding the design. #wicked
She looks like the idiot she is.
Looking queen-y, Cam! But like queen of the damned or better yet, bride of Dracula. It does not look like she and Charles checked with each other at all on their Vatican outfits?? His blue suit makes her look even more funereal. Weird.