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.
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.
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.
Had to show Fletcher Cox, my hometown Eagles pick.
I was at Iron Hill Brewery the other night watching young men win the instant lottery...I mean the NFL draft picks...with my husband and my son. You know Iron Hill...that's the restaurant where they sit you at those really high tables so everyone walking on the floor looks like some weird suburban version of Toulouse-Lautrec. I thought it interesting in a time when watch sales are way down, most of these athletes were wearing them. Try as I may to see what brand would emerge as the most popular, most appeared to be "no brand big sporty cheapo watches". But the real money is just beginning to roll in...give these guys time...soon will come the cars, the houses and the Brietling's, the Omegas, the Panerai's and the Rolex's...and, unfortunately for some, the bad behavior.
It seems the watches we associate with athletes are the brands they are
paid to wear. The industry refers to these individuals as their "ambassadors". Sounds like a really easy job, right? Just wear a luxury watch worth thousands and you'll earn millions as you go about your daily business. The
thing is, once in a while, some of that business isn't fit for publication.
It would seem Rolex played that card smartly by associating their brand
with golf. Golfers are the usually the gentlemen and gentlewomen of the sports arena and one would wonder what inside info Rolex had on Tiger Woods that
allowed them to dodge a vampire bullet by signing almost every other golfer in the history of the game except him. Tag Heuer must still be kicking themselves in the ass for trying to stay with Tiger as long
as they could. But, in the end, they had to let him go because they knew the brand was more important than their
amb"ass"ador.
Tiger has been one of the best examples of schadenfreude known to man in the history of the world.
Opals are the worst birthstone possible. They are fragile, bad luck, and mostly colorless booger looking things. Unless they look like these...
(clockwise from top left) Judy Geib Machu Picchu Opal Cuff Bracelet with Enamel
Mosaic Back, $14,680, judygeibplusalpha.com | Monique Péan Peruvian Opal and
White Diamond Necklace, 18K Recycled White Gold, $15,820, barneys.com |
Moonstone, Platinum and Diamond 'Cluster' Ear Clips, $29,500, Verdura,
212-758-33884. | Irene Neuwirth, One-of-a-Kind 18K White and Yellow Gold
Earrings Set with Boulder Opals, Crystal Opals and Mixed Shape Rose Cut
Diamonds, $57,820, Barneys, 212-826-89005. | 'Liberty Island' Ring Featuring
Black Opal, Diamonds and Black Spinels Set in 18K White Gold, price upon
request, Van Cleef & Arpels, 877-826-2533. How nice of VC&A to provide their phone number!
These are magnificent examples of opals. With my October birthday, I received many opals over the years and absolutely none of them looked like the above. All are broken and many are missing...I have no clue where most of them are. And that's OK as they supposedly reek with bad luck. However, I was recently organizing my jewelry and found a memorable opal ring I received when I was around 13 or so. The mounting was marquise shaped with multiple small, round opals on top rather than one large stone. I remember losing one of the little opals right away and my mother, ever resourceful and crafty, actually dropped a dollop of Elmer's Glue into the missing hole, allowed it to set, and voila!, fake stand in opal at your disposal. I wore the ring like that, passing the glue off for an opal, for years. And, guess what...although the drop of glue shrunk and hardened a little over the years, it was still there.
Score another one for Christie's. Still recovering from their record setting auction of Elizabeth Taylor's personal jewel collection, on April 17th, Christie's will handle the disposition of the rare and outstanding gems and jewelry recently found when late copper mining heiress, Huguette Clark's, safety deposit box was opened. Sealed for more than seven decades, head of jewelry for Christie's, Rahul Kadakia, said it was like "chasing a rainbow" when he finally saw the gems. I agree with Mr. Kadakia,who further said, "Opening the vault to find this treasure trove of period jewels from the best French houses of the early 1900's has certainly been one of the most extraordinary moments in my 15 year career here at Christie's." However I keep thinking this was some kind of A&E's Storage Wars for the rich.
Every piece was still in it's original, vintage box and includes this
Cartier 19.86 carat, D, potentially internally flawless, diamond ring
from the 1930's, with an estimated value of $2 to $3 million
dollars...which seems low to me.
And then there was the extremely rare Belle Epoque, 9 carat, fancy, vivid
purple-pink, diamond by Dreicer & Co., circa 1910,
valued at $6 to $8 million dollars, which she inherited from her mother.
Among the 17 items found were two unbelievable Cartier bracelets. This
one is an art deco diamond and emerald piece valued at $50,000 to
$70,000.
And the other is this all diamond bracelet which has been estimated at $300,000 to $500,000. Seen wearing them in the photo above, this was one of the last known images
of Clark, which was taken after she signed her divorce papers and right
before she went into seclusion.
Not to mention the real estate. Clark left three New York apartments which overlook Central Park and are believed to be the biggest in the city. Two occupy the entire 8th floor of a Fifth Avenue address. The third unit takes up one half of the 12th floor at the same address and was used to store her doll collection. Cue the tinkly, creepy "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" music. The real estate is estimated to fetch in the neighborhood of $55 million dollars.
Of course there are two wills, and the contesting will go on for years. Huguette had no children and reportedly left the bulk of her $400 million fortune to her nurse. This person should look both ways before she crosses those busy New York streets.
There are more pictures of Jessica Biel without her new ring than there are with. Why the mystery? In case Justin Timberlake cheats on her again, she can say they were never really engaged. Although specifics are hard to find, the ring appears to have a large square stone with vintage elements.
I'm really surprised that people aren't talking about what looks a baby bump.
Next is Drew Barrymore. She recently became engaged to "art consultant", Will Koppleman. He presented her with a four carat radiant cut diamond from Graff reportedly valued at $80,000. Like a good Jewish boy - he gave good diamond. Barrymore said, "He's just got lovely taste, and it's really fancy. I'm sort of like funky, eclectic girl, so I feel like this is very fancy and I'm trying to like, you know, feel comfortable with it."
I could, like you know, get comfortable with a ring like that. Like, you know.
And last but not least, there is Snooki. Presented with a true jersey girl ring, it's a custom made three carat princess cut diamond sitting on top of a two carat eternity band. Of course it is. I'd reserve the eternity band part as my wedding ring and have a plain mounting for the princess cut stone. Wait until those diamonds start popping out when she hits it against beer cans.
Pregnancy rumors swirled around Drew and Snooki with only Snooki confirming she is expecting. I bet their girlgyna-cologists will have front row seats at the weddings.
This looks like an x-ray of something retrieved from a stomach, but it's really a close up of Snooki's ring.
