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The 'Protector Collection'

Asprey has unveiled Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's latest foray into jewelry design. What do you think? Do these snake-inspired designs have you charmed?

I've got my eye on the tiny "Children's/Adult's Snake Rings," and I love the animated snake on the "Sterling Silver Tooth Box." While its function makes a whole lot of sense for the Jolie-Pitts and their young brood, I'd fill mine with some small pieces of jewelry.

         

Left: The "Fine Jewelled Rings" feature bright cabochon-emerald eyes, with jeweled "scales" that are smooth to the touch.

Center: The "Fine Jewelled Double Twist Bracelet" is a flexible but solid platinum bracelet depicting two intertwined snakes.

Right: The "Children's/Adult's Snake Earrings" feature 154 faceted gemstones. The "tail" is both a part of the design and a fitting to secure the earring.

       

Left: The gemstone versions of the "Children's/Adult's Snake Pendants" feature 104 stones, while the gold version has been buffed to a smooth, polished surface.

Right: The tiny "Children's/Adult's Snake Rings" sparkle with fully faceted precious gemstones, as minute as 1 millimeter each, and set by hand.

   

Left: The cup and coiled snake of the "Sterling Silver Eggcup" were separately polished and then soldered together, before being hand polished as a final piece.

Center: A guilloche technique gives texture to the base of the "Sterling Silver Tooth Box," whose contents are protected by the snake on top.

Right: The handle of the "Sterling Silver Spoon" was carved in wax by Asprey's master model maker, and then molten sterling silver was poured into the mold to form a solid sculpture. The scales were then refined and hand chased. The spoon's bowl was hammered from a sheet of silver.

This year's holiday jewelry ads

Last night, A Diamond is Forever (De Beers’ U.S. marketing team) hosted a special screening of the cinema-specific holiday commercial for the Everlon Diamond Knot Collection, followed by a complimentary viewing of the latest A Christmas Carol, complete with free popcorn, candy and what I would call “pop,” but most people in this area of the country would reference as “soda.”  

Unfortunately, I couldn’t go but was able to view the theater-ready spot on my own.  

Remember when you used to go to the movies and see only previews before the show started? Now I feel like I’m seeing more ads for products than coming attractions.

In any case, cinema advertising is here to stay.

After all, you can’t command TiVo to skip the commercials in a movie theater, and it’s good that De Beers and other jewelers are taking advantage of this medium in an economy where it’s going to take all the convincing they can muster to get consumers to part with their money.  

After wrestling with my slow computer software for a good 30 minutes, I finally was able to download what turned out to be a slightly longer version of the same Everlon commercial I’d already seen.

I think the commercial is fine, and the product, while not the most amazing design ever, is thankfully not something heart shaped (more on that later). 

But I’m not the only one to say that, overall, I prefer the “Hands” commercial. The music is better—“Stand By Me” vs. “I’ve Got You Babe"—and the concept of “Hands”—growing old together—is one that speaks to almost everyone.

View “Hands” here and judge for yourself.

Of course, with the holiday season just around the corner, and eager retailers running sales well out in front of Black Friday, De Beers isn’t the only one advertising.

There’s this spot for Zale’s new heart-within-a-heart jewelry.

I don’t understand this industry’s obsession with heart jewelry—to me it’s overdone—but apparently the public likes it, or they’d have found a new design motif a long time ago.

As for the commercial itself, I find it touching.

One thing Zales’ ads have done well recently is to send a message that expressing love through the gift of jewelry doesn’t have to be something that just couples do, as is shown by the sweet exchange between mother and child in the Shared Heart commercial.

Another good example of this is Zales’ recent Mother’s Day ads. They have even more emotional appeal than the Shared Heart spot and are another example of positioning jewelry to transcend the typical man-gifts-to-woman treatment.

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Jane Seymour is back with a new commercial and fresh designs for the oh-so-popular “Open Hearts by Jane Seymour” line sold at Kay Jewelers.  

I think Sterling Jewelers (the owner and operator of Kay as well as Jared The Galleria Of Jewelers) struck marketing gold with Jane. What makes the Open Hearts so popular, I believe, is the unique design and compelling story that speaks to those facing adversity or loneliness, which probably applies to even more consumers this holiday season. That message: “If your heart is open, love will always find its way in.” 

Last, and possibly least, is this commercial for Kay’s “Love’s Embrace” collection. I wasn’t particularly enamored with this ad when I first saw it, though it took a couple of online replays to figure out why: I just don’t like the storyline of this grown woman being so afraid of the storm that she needs a man to protect her.

It’s quite the opposite of De Beers’ Everlon spot, which depicts men and women on a level playing field. Also, the thunderstorm doesn’t particularly scream “holiday season” to me.

But, as one expert pointed out, the winter wonderland portrayed in the Everlon commercial might seem like a foreign land to viewers in places such as Florida or Arizona.

Whatever the case may be, I’ll be keeping my eye out for fresh spots as the holiday season continues.

'Afternoon at the museum'

When I was a kid, I loved it when our class’ annual field trip was to Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Back then, life didn’t get much better than an afternoon out of the classroom surrounded by dinosaur bones. Fast-forward some 20 years to that same sweet, adorable child's life as an (alleged) adult living in New York City, and it’s easy to understand why one of my favorite attractions is the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).

So when approached by gemologist Joshua Sheby of New York-based Scarselli Diamonds Inc. about spending an afternoon in the museum's Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems, I naturally jumped at the chance.

Sheby spent years as a diamond grader specializing in fancy colors with the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and has been with Scarselli for two years now. He curated the “Olympia Diamond Collection,” Scarselli’s grouping of five natural-color diamonds loaned to the AMNH for its current display of diamonds.

The diamonds in the Olympia collection range in size from 1.01 to 2.34 carats and they all have three things in common:

• They're untreated; their color is entirely natural.
• They’re all radiant-cut stones.
• All three are graded "fancy vivid" by the GIA, the colorless diamond equivalent of a "D."

My personal favorite in the collection is the vivid orange (second from right), and I am not just saying that because I have an affinity for fall, carving pumpkins and Halloween, or because it was the largest of the collection, weighing in at more than two carats.

When I first started working at National Jeweler, natural-color diamonds appealed to me from the start. In first learning about the stones, I was told that red and purple diamonds are the most rare when talking color. But Sheby said based on his knowledge of the industry and experience as a grader, he believes orange diamonds—natural, untreated oranges, like the famous and delightfully named "Pumpkin Diamond” worn by actress Halle Berry when she accepted the Oscar for Monster's Ball in 2002—might actually top reds in rarity.

So how much would a stone like this one go for?

Sheby and Scarselli aren’t saying. But, with only one in 10,000 diamonds unearthed qualifying as a natural-color diamond, and with orange being among the rarest of these, I’m going to guess this 2.34-carat stunner would command a pretty hefty price. 

Guess I’ll just stick to admiring orange diamonds from afar.

The kaleidoscope of Spectrum

Entries in the AGTA Spectrum Awards were especially diverse this year, with numerous examples of Windex-blue Paraiba tourmalines (one of my all-time favorite stones), baroque pearls, sapphires in every hue (of course) and even color-change garnets.

We’ve named the Spectrum winners in this story, but here I am featuring some personal favorites spotted at the press preview of the awards, held last week in New York City. The preview was held in a beautiful penthouse in Greenwich Village, where sunlight helped play up the colors of the gemstones. These were all photographed by Thomas Rosinski, National Jeweler's art director.

Above is a pair of jade earrings, entered in the Evening Wear category, by Liora Berdugo of Oshawa Jewellery, rendered in 18-karat white gold and featuring jade accented with 2.85 carats of diamonds and onyx. So delicate and vibrant!

Jorge Adeler of Adeler Jewelers submitted this 30.5-millimeter freshwater baroque pearl ring, above, in 14-karat yellow gold and accented with white diamonds totaling 0.34 carats in the Business/Day Wear category. I like the way the diamond pavé is used only halfway around the pearl, adding to the "imperfect" look that makes baroques so popular. What a great power ring to wear to work!

The "Orbit" ring, below, by James Currens of J.W. Currens in New York, is aptly named, with colors that are really out of this world. It features a 5.37-carat pink spinel, 15.83 carats of spessartite garnets and 1.16 carats of diamonds and was the winner in the Platinum Honors category for Business/Day Wear. The pink and orange combination is unusual and striking.

This 18-karat white gold and black-rhodium ring, right, entered in the Evening Wear category is by David Hakimian of Parviz Designs, and features a 9.65-carat aquamarine accented with 0.99 carats of pavé diamonds.

It is an example of how the darkened metal look can work extremely well with colored stones. 

 

How festive are these18-karat white gold drop earrings, left, entered in the Evening Wear category by Samuel Getz of Samuel Getz Designs? These feature 24.82 carats of antique square cushion-shaped rhodolite garnets, 91.25 carats of cushion-shaped red spinels, a pair of 13-millimeter black Tahitian pearls and 2.04 carats round-brilliant diamonds.

Another Business/Day Wear category entry that drew my eye is Frederick Sage’s pink and green gold “Enigma” pendant, below, featuring a 161.81-carat natural quartz with various crystal and mineral formations. The quartz is accented with brown and white diamonds and hangs on a hand-made chain. It's difficult to tell from the photograph, but the quartz has a really great 3D effect, and the earth tones make it a great  piece for accessorizing.