Jewellery News

The couple announced they were married at the Oscar award ceremony. Natalie Portman has been engaged to Benjamin Millipied for a while and they decided to very subtly weave the news into their interviews. No fanfare, no big announcements. Guess there are a few people in Hollywood still who believe in their privacy and do not contribute to all the hooha that usually surrounds a celebrity’s engagement or marriage.
Natalie’s engagement ring was designed by one of Benjamin’s friends, a dancer. It was an antiques diamond set in platinum and according to the designer, Benjamin was very involved in the designing every step of the way. The wedding rings were designed by Jamie Wolf and while his is a simple platinum band, hers comprise two diamond rings which have been made to fit on either side of her engagement ring.
All the rings are very eco-friendly as Natalie is very into a lifestyle that is as earth-friendly as possible. The platinum is recycled, the diamonds have been certified as being conflict-free and no doubt they feel great that they are doing their bit for the earth’s conservation. It really is a great example they are setting and hopefully more celebrities will follow.

Not everyone can afford a very expensive engagement ring when they decide to get married. It is a burden on a young man who is starting out in his career and isn’t earning anything more than to support himself. Short of taking a huge loan, many find it tough to keep up with others and buy the girl of their dreams a dazzling diamond engagement ring.
Bethenny Frankell is a lucky woman. She and Jason Hoppy got married some time ago but he could not afford to get the engagement ring that they both would have wanted. So they decided to wait and in time, when they could afford it, they upgraded to the engagement ring that they wanted. By this time, they could afford it and it was not such an effort to put down the money for the ring.
So should engagement rings just mark time if you can’t afford what you want and want to wait? What a great idea. It means a lot of younger people can get married with a smaller engagement ring and then upgrade whenever they have the money to get a better one. It has a few other advantages too. If the couple feels that the marriage isn’t working, it means that there won’t be too much angst about the amount spent on the ring. And if it works well, all the more reason to show the world just how wonderful life is.

Anything Adele does now makes news, big news. How could it not after her wonderful triumph at the Grammy Awards and at the Brits after that. So when she appeared at the Brits with a ring that had a huge yellow stone, people wanted to know if it was an engagement ring. She wore this ring next to a simple band. The 23 year old is dating 36-year old Simon Konecki and obviously everyone wondered if she was going to celebrate her success by getting engaged.
She’s come a long way, has Adele. From a dingy apartment above a store, her wonderful voice has brought her the just dues she deserves and she now lives in a 10-bedroom home set on 25 acres of land. She won six Grammies and she also won top honours at the Brits. And she says she is going to concentrate on her personal life for the next few years. Can people be blamed if they think that is an engagement ring? However, she did wear a different ring to the American awards so maybe she isn’t after all.
Simon is head of an international charity programme that is involved in bringing clean drinking water to places where this is not available. It looks like Adele too would like to spend some time working on this so maybe that is what she meant when she said she would like to take some time off. Whatever the reason, everyone is watching the wonderful voice to see what happens.

A couple in Australia had to go through the trauma of seeing their home go up in flames. Garreth and Marjorie as well as thirty three other homes and nine chalets were engulfed in a bush fire that swept through their part of Australia. Garreth was just recovering from an infection and a hip injury but when they found their gold wedding rings in the ashes, they felt that it was like a second lease of life. So he decided to get the rings cleaned up and he proposed again on Valentine’s Day.
He could do this thanks to Susi Jewellers who saw that though the rings were dark with the fire, the gold had not been destroyed. So she set about making the wedding rings wearable again. That wasn’t enough for her, though. She also gave them scented bath bombs, champagne, champagne flutes and chocolates to complete the Valentine’s Day celebration. Another couple, hearing about this, did their bit by paying for the ring repairs.
The couple also found a pair of earrings and a sapphire eternity ring too. The couple now lives in a temporary home close to where their home stood and they say they are so touched with how generous people in the area are.

There has been so much being said about Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux and the world around them is eagerly watching to see if they are wearing rings. They are so much together and so in love that it seems the logical conclusion that they will soon get engaged and married. However, things have not moved the way they have been expected to and Jennifer Aniston is keeping everyone guessing.
Recently, they were both seen with rings on their fingers and the obvious exclamation was, are they engagement rings? The couple appeared at the Wanderlust movie premiere with the rings on their fingers and it looks like they are promise rings and they were both co-ordinated. They are both wearing ‘name rings’ so she has her name in black on the ring and he has his name in red on his ring. So, though there is a lot of speculation, there is no evidence of a diamond engagement ring yet. The thing is, Jennifer has always been different so could it be that these are their engagement rings?
There were also rumours that Jennifer could be expecting and there seemed to be a baby bump recently but it does not look like it now. Everyone knows Jennifer has always wanted to have a baby and this seems to be on her mind a great deal as she is getting older. Whatever their rings might be, the two love each other and it looks like an engagement will be announced soon.

Yes, Patti Wong’s diamond ring is yellow and it is all of 80.69 carats in weight. What’s more, it has been valued at £2.2 million. In a market where the price of diamonds is going up and up, it is still amazing how the demand for diamonds does not seem to be decreasing. And Patty Wong is just one of the many Chinese who seems keen on investing in this precious stone while the market around looks unsure.
The Chief Executive of the World Diamond Centre at Antwerp feels that the Chinese are now looking to invest in things that have a very long term value. What better than precious metals and precious stones? Like this high value yellow diamond ring. As more and more Chinese make a lot of money, they also look at areas where they can park their money safely without the risk of loss. Many of them have invested heavily in gold and they are all set to overtake India and become the largest buyers of gold in the world this year. Now, they seem to be turning to diamonds.
In auctions, many of the buyers of high end jewellery are Chinese today. Hong Kong is a great place to have an auction as many of the world’s leading auction houses have found and today, there are a number of anonymous buyers who are also speculated to be Chinese. This in spite of the fact that diamonds are taxed very heavily with luxury taxes in China.

After sleepless nights, a lady in South Florida has found her heirloom which is actually her mother-in-law’s wedding ring. Marina had her engagement ring and this wedding ring on while she driving to do some shopping. She slipped off the rings to apply some lotion on her hands and then forgot about the rings so she thinks they must have fallen out when she got out of the car. One wonders whether women will never learn not to take off their rings in cars, powder rooms and other places.
The engagement ring had a 6.8 carat diamond but what Marina was most bothered about was the mother-in-law’s wedding ring that she lost. The ring has a very long history and maybe that’s why it means so much to her. The wedding ring was worn by her mother-in-law who was a survivor of the holocaust and so was her husband. He had been through the horror of four concentration camps but he and his wife had survived. She passed away recently and though her father-in-law did not blame Marina in any way, she was devastated.
Her lucky day began when another lady found it in the shopping centre and while they were watching TV, the husband happened to listen into the news about the lost ring. So they called the next morning and after Marina had identified the ring, they gave it back to her. However, her diamond engagement ring is missing. Marina is just so happy that she got the heirloom ring back.

One wondered if these two were setting a new trend with keeping their wedding rings on even after they had separated. However, Seal recently removed his wedding ring and this of course, led Heidi Klum to do likewise. Naturally, with both of them keeping their wedding rings on for so long, there was a lot of speculation and everyone was wondering what on earth was going on.
Heidi was seen without her wedding ring when she went to drop her sons off at a karate class. This was in Los Angeles and obviously everyone noticed her new bare finger. She knew it too though she tried to appear nonchalant as the news guys did their usual job, focussing on her finger and taking pictures. Seal was first seen without his wedding ring on a rather auspicious day – Valentine’s Day and now it looks like finally Heidi has done the same too.
The couple were married for six years and this was one couple that people thought would be together for always. They renewed their vows every year, were very open about how much they loved each other and how they would be together. However, Seal has been known to party hard in the recent past and they have both had massive fights. So finally, it’s yet another celebrity marriage on the rocks. Though Seal says that there are hopes they could reconcile, it looks like it is the end of the road for the two of them.

What are gypsy rings? They are rings that were designed and made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and they were very popular then. Many have survived, having been handed down from generation to generation and there are so many people who possess one because they did not have the heart to change anything about them but wanted them preserved the way they were.
Gypsy diamond rings are heavy rings made of yellow gold and they have gemstones set in them in a bezel setting. The ring was designed to have holes made in the gold and the gems were dropped into these holes so they appeared to be set in a flush setting. These heavy, gold rings were considered the height of fashion in their day and were worn by the rich. Though a few women also possessed them, these rings were, essentially, men’s rings and the most popular design was one where three diamonds were set in the gold in a row. Needless to say the diamonds were usually quite large and they were round in shape. Later, diamonds were often teamed with or replaced by other coloured gemstones.
Though these rings were worn mostly by men, women also wore rings inspired by the early designs and the designs were more flowery and intricate. There was beading added and gold punch work to make them different. Today, gypsy diamond rings demand a rather good price and a lot would depend on the gold used as well as the weight, clarity and cut of the diamond.

There’s been a growing awareness among men that they could wear rings too to show the world that they are engaged. More and more men are wearing engagement rings and some of them are wearing designer rings at that. The range of men’s engagement rings had widened and today there is a great choice of rings that come in different metals with a variety of settings.
A survey that was done recently by a jeweller and it was called the 5th annual proposal and engagement survey. According to this survey, around 17% of the men who were surveyed said that they would be happy to wear a men’s engagement ring. This isn’t really a new trend all over the world as there are places such as South America where it is very much a tradition. However, now it looks like men all over the world might soon be inclined to wear an engagement ring too.
There’s a lot of merit to men wearing engagement rings. Till now, it was only the man who spent money to get the girl something valuable. Now, women can reciprocate too and men too can be seen by the world that they are already spoken for. With more and more women working and earning good salaries, it seems only fair that the man get something to commemorate this happy day too. What would be interesting to see is whether this trend will continue and whether the woman will now take the lead and be the one to do the proposing. This year would be a good time to start considering it is a leap year.

Paul Draper has designed a special and unique diamond ring for the tsunami that swept through Japan last year and created such havoc. The trouble is, the devastation was so great, so many people all over Japan are still recovering from it. This is why designer Draper decided to create something special to be auctioned so the proceeds can go towards the tsunami victims. This unique diamond ring will be auctioned in May by Christie’s. The auction will take place in the end of May at the Christie’s Elegance Sale which will be held at South Kensington.
The diamond ring will be made of palladium and the design is unisex so it can be worn by both men and women. The diamonds that will be set in it will be in different colours of brown, orange and black and the palladium diamond ring will also have six white, blue and brown diamonds set in a platinum collet which will be engraved. In the collet will be a diamond that is marquise shaped and all these stand for various aspects of the tsunami.
The blue marquise stands for a ship that was swept right into the land and the brown and black stand for the disaster that happened. There were six great jewellery craftsmen who Paul Draper approached so that their special skills could all come together to make this diamond ring truly a work of art. The ring was designed in two halves to make it easier and it was then brought together.