Sunday, May 27, 2012

Angelina Jolie's New Jewelry Line Is As Bland As She Appears To Be

Superfierce enough already.  
Angelina Jolie is partnering with Robert Procop, the designer who worked with Brad Pitt to make her engagement ring, to exhibit a jewelry collection bearing her name, Style of Jolie, at the Grand Hotel in Cap Ferrat and Monaco's Hotel de Paris from July 15 through August 15, with proceeds from sales going to a charity of Jolie's choice.

Take a look at the jewelry, along with her engagement ring.  Jewelry supposedly reflects your personality and Jolie's pieces seem to be as blank as she is.  She rarely smiles in photos, afraid to project any aspect of what's really going on in her life lest she be judged or revealed.

Jolie seldom wears jewelry that sparkles.  She seems so serious all the time.  I wonder if she's ever been one of those crazy moms who rolls around on the floor with her children, build forts out of blankets over chairs, makes baking soda volcanoes, lets her daughters into her makeup, or allow her kids to eat chocolate for breakfast?  Someone needs to give Jolie a zzuugghh.

Emeralds...said to be Jolie's favorite.
 
Matching emerald bracelet.


Looks like Pier 1 jewelry but is actually a 27 carat emerald ring.


Green quartz tablet earrings.

Emerald cut diamonds have fewer facets so they're don't have the sparkle of other cuts, but that also means that they need to be the best quality.  Jolie's ring was designed by Brad Pitt and is thought to be 17 carats made from the finest diamonds available.  But even it is flat.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

People Forgot Where They Put Their Jewelry Even in 1100 BC

Hidden pictures.
There are goats on this solid gold earring somewhere.
Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University uncovered a vase wrapped in cloth at an archeological dig of a private Canaanite home. Inside they found jewelry dating back to 1100 BC. The assortment was well preserved and included carnelian beads consistent with Egyptian designs from the same period. Several of the pieces were solid gold, and one specific piece appears to be decorated with molded goats. This tells me that nothing in fashion is new, and the styles from the 80's were not original.

I always encouraged my clients to secure their jewelry in a safe that has been drilled into the floor in an accessible area in your home. My mother would have wrapped her jewelry in cloth and put it in a vase, but in today's "I'm gonna be in and out of your house and steal your shit in under one minute," that doesn't work. I remember a customer's classic story about hiding their jewelry in the rod of an old pull down movie screen that was attached to their ceiling (remember movie screens). When they moved out of that home, they forgot they had ever hidden the jewelry. A year later, they received a call from the people who bought their home. After they finally got settled, they decided to watch a movie. They heard a noise when they pulled down the screen, and imagine their surprise when a diamond ring, sapphire earring, and diamond tennis bracelet tumbled out of the thing. 

My point: just remember, if you don't have a safe, at least write down where your secret hiding spots are.

Actual Kenneth J. Lane goat earrings from the 80's.  They're baaaahhhhdddd.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

April Showers Bring May...Diamonds?

Apparently it's raining (or reigning, as many of these amazing stones come from royal houses) diamonds during the busy gem auction month of May.  Some of the most important diamonds in history have come upon the auction block and have passed into the hands of individuals whose wealth is so stealth they have 10 million dollars of disposable income budgeted just for baubles.

First we have the Beau Sancy diamond, purchased yesterday for $9.7 million dollars by an anonymous buyer at Sotheby's Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels auction in Geneva.  Remaining anonymous is important because the buyer is thought to be European and they are supposed to be poor these days and behaving themselves with all kinds of austerity.  The oldest diamond to ever land on the auction block, the 400 year old, 34.98 carat Beau Sancy, was worn by Marie de Medici during her coronation as queen consort to Henri IV in France in 1610.  Apparently the story goes that once Marie saw the diamond she had to have it and nagged the philandering Henri until he bought it for her.  This tells us that nagging one's spouse for special favors remains an extremely successful technique some 400 years later. 

By 1631, crippled with debt, Marie, now the widowed Queen Mother of France, sold the Beau Sancy to a royal Dutch family where it was used to seal the wedding of William II of Orange to Mary Stuart, daughter of King Charles I.  After William's death, Stuart returned to England and sold the diamond to fund her brother's, Charles II, fight for the throne.

Passed among the royal families in France, England, Prussia and the Netherlands, the stone was sold by the Royal House of Prussia, the line of descendants that once ruled Prussia.





Next blog...for all of the Jamie Fraser, "Outlander" freaks out there, a historic diamond once owned by Charles Edward Stuart, better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, who owned the stone when the Jacobite Rebellion was crushed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.