Why do princesses wear a tiara?

When everybody wore hats, your social status could be seen by your hat! At one point in history all women wore some kind of head covering, so young ladies wore them too. The royalty wore crowns. The king had a big state crown and so did the queen. When they didn't use the state crown, they had an every day crown for every day use around their palace.

So if there are tons of people in the palace, how do you tell who is the royal kid? You give them a little tiny crown, called a circlet or a tiara. The boys wore the circlet and the girls wore the tiara and a visitor to the palace could tell who was royal by the type of hat they wore.

The tiara and the circlet were made of very expensive stuff like real gold and diamonds, and every body knew that the king gave the tiara to the kid. Today, we all know that girls are princesses so everybody can wear a tiara. It's fun and since they can be made of plastic, anybody can get one. But way back, they were just for royalty.