WOW – does this look like a BIG BLING jewel, or what?!

This flawless, 101.73 carat, pear-shaped diamond was recently sold for a record $26.7 million at auction in Geneva.

The stone, titled the “Winston Legacy” — mined in Botswana and cut from a rough stone weighing 236 carats — was purchased by renown jeweler Harry Winston.

“Harry Winston acquired the most perfect diamond ever offered for sale at auction,” said Rahul Kadakia, Head of Jewelry at Christie’s Switzerland and Americas. (quote and photo credit, Reuters)

Can’t wait to see what they will do with it!?  … Super sparkly door-stop?

Any self-respecting BLING blog would be remiss to not recognize the big, huge, audacious deal that is the upcoming release of Warner Brothers’ The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DeCaprio and Carey Mulligan.

All ilk of jewelry, fashion and interior design are lining up around the block to bask in the glow of the movie’s epic Art Deco luster. No surprise that one of our favorite flavors, Tiffany & Company, has aligned with the film.

To kick off the festivities, the exclusive jeweler revealed a series of Great Gatsby windows in the flagship Fifth Avenue store and positioned a giant Tiffany Blue Box in Rockefeller Center (shown above) as part of an invite-only Tiffany Blue Book Gala where they celebrated the Jazz era and debuted the dazzling Gatsby-inspired Blue Book jewelry collection.

The Blue Book collection includes spectacular Tiffany jewelry from the 1920′s to the modern age.  Check out the stunning pendants, earrings, bracelets, brooches and other unique pieces on the Tiffany website – and see them in action when the movie hits theaters May 10th.

We’re giddy with anticipation!

Who’d a thunk it?  In addition to playing a mean guitar, iconic Rolling Stones’ musician Ron “Ronnie” Wood, is a painter as well.

On his website, he talks up the recent preview of his one-man-show,

Hi everyone. Everything going great for the private view tonight. Things are really hotting up. Hope you can all get to see the show at Castle gallery Brutton street … Also getting ready to rock with the boys … See you soon.  Ronnie

What could be more fabulous than walking into a London gallery and looking at lovely paintings while listening to live, acoustic music played by one or more of the most heralded musicians of our time?

The only thing more fabulous than that, is that plus BLING!

… From the looks of things, Ronnie uses sparkly something-or-other in some of his work, to great effect (see above).

According to his press, Ronnie has held solo exhibitions in New York, Las Vegas and Tokyo, as well as retrospectives at the Modern Art Museum in San Paulo and at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame.  Collectors of Ronnie’s work include former President Bill Clinton and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

BLING on, Ronnie!

Alas - a lovely, inspired and kindred spirit in BLING, French jewelry designer, Marie-Helene de Taillac establishes her presence in the States with the opening of a lovely, inspired new shop in Manhattan.

Successfully countering the prevailing “statement jewelry” trend, de Taillac’s simple delicate designs incorporate a ”rainbow of precious and semiprecious stones” featuring the drop-like briolette shape (shown above), traditionally used with diamonds, to bring out their color and sparkle.

Beyond her beautiful, accessible designs, we adore  Ms. de Taillac for her passion for gemstones. She is quoted in a recent interview,

“I’m basically stone mad … I can’t resist buying gemstones. I’m not a collector in the sense that I have to hoard … I like that they pass through my hands.”

We wish her every success with the new shop … 20 East 69th Street, NYC … (She also has locations in Paris and Tokyo).

Stop by, if only to get a glimpse of the Yves Klein glass table in the upstairs salon … filled with 46,000 carats of loose aquamarines! 

Sometimes more interesting than actually wearing BLING is encountering it in creative new scenarios.

The April 2013 W Magazine (the one with accessibly-authentic-yet-smolderingly-appealing Eddie Redmayne on the cover) features ridiculously awesome, up-est of upscale BLING in a pictorial mash-up with abstract impressionistic portraiture.

The piece shown above, photograph and illustration by Horacio Salinas and styled by Claudia Mata, incorporates from top: Bulgari 18k white gold, sapphire, and diamond necklace. From left: Sylva & Cie. one-of-a-kind 18k yellow gold, sterling silver, citrine, and diamond necklace; Fred Leighton early-19th-century amethyst rivière necklace; Eclat Jewels one-of-a-kind 18k rose gold, semiprecious stones, and diamond necklace; de Grisogono 18k white gold, sapphire, and diamond necklace; Van Cleef & Arpels at FD Gallery circa-1940 18k yellow gold, sapphire, emerald, and diamond brooch.   

(Jus’ sayin’ — “Wow” is totally inadequate to describe that crazy-incredible de Grisogono multi-colored sapphire and diamond necklace draped along the nose-line … )

Really interesting presentation – Personally though, for me, nothing beats the pure brilliance of a single, perfectly cut stone, sparkling in natural light.

Always looking to feature the work of artists who use jewels/sparkle as the inspiration for their work, we came across this engaging series of hand-silkscreened prints by artist Elisa Werbler.

Werbler describes herself as a “designer and maker” who focuses on form and color in print works as well as in furniture and large-scale installations.

Based in New York City, Elisa hails from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she majored in furniture design. Some recent clients include Kate Spade, Coach and Anthropoligie.

Pictured above is “Emerald”; 11″ X 14”; $110, unframed; shown below, left to right, are representations of three more of our own BIG BLING gemstones, Garnet, Amethyst and Aquamarine; also $110 each, unframed.

See the rest of the “Birthstones” series as well as examples of her furniture and large-scale work on Elisa’s website at www.elisawerbler.com.

Nothing like a BLING-y shoe to get a girl dancin’ …

This season J. Crew steps out with a seriously sparkly collection of footwear in styles that go from work to wow — !

Shown here are, at top, the Etta Crystal and Stud pumps in pewter, and below, the ivory and deep grey Janey Jeweled Bow Snakeskin Flats.

You can find them online for $375 and $125, respectively.

PS: While you’re there, pick up a style guide and check out the new collection of J. Crew jewels …

( … there’s a Crystal Cupcake necklace !!)

The 85th Academy Awards show is just a day away and we can’t wait to see who shows up wearing what!

Stunner necklaces, earrings, brooches … even clutches and shoes are BIG BLING-worthy these days.

Tune in, take notes and give us your favs!!

Swarovski ran this ad in the March issue of Vanity Fair –

What could be more inspiring in the middle of a Minnesota February than the promise of beautiful, sparkly, spring flowers!

Swarovski has been a BLING-y little beehive all season long as they — and their band of sparkly vendors — launch a plethora of bedazzled products for the home front.

A family-owned company based in Wattens, Austria, Swarovski makes crystals in over 150 colors and 400 different cuts. Retailers buy the loose crystals in bulk and manufacture a wide variety of products like these featured in a recent WSJ article …

• Crystal-embedded concrete walls and wall panels; $150- 400 per square foot depending on number of crystals and layers of concrete
• Laser-cut wood inlay floors; prices for custom designs vary by size, intricacy of pattern and number of crystals used
• Door handles and accessories including cabinet knobs, coat hooks and door stops; prices vary by intricacy and number of crystals used
• Wallpaper that combines crystals, pearls, foil and layers of ink; the pattern Cashmere, for example, costs $1,384 for an 11-yard roll

Clearly, Swarovski sparkliness is coming out of the woodwork this season — BLING on!

PreRamble:  Well, of course this caught our eye – WIRED Magazine’s Big Idea #7: Build Skyscrapers Out of Diamonds.

??

Scientist, Stephen Bates has been mucking around with crystals and lasers in an effort to create a synthesized material that can act as structural material for machine parts, human bones … and even buildings.

“It’s one of the hardest materials in the universe … clear, frictionless, chemically inert, an excellent conductor of heat … And it’s made of one of the most common elements: carbon.”

Apparently, all you have to do is:

“Pack diamond grit, an inexpensive industrial product, into a mold with vaporized C60 fullerene … Then blast the whole thing with a laser beam. The fullerene breaks apart, and carbon condenses between the diamond particles, effectively fusing them into a relatively solid mass.”

Poof – why didn’t we think of that?

Bates brought experience from NASA and Princeton to General Motors where he built a transparent piston engine using sapphire. The sapphire motor led to speculation around the very similar properties of diamond … Summed up by Bates,

“Anything you can do with sapphire would work better with diamond, if you could afford it.”

The Take-Away: I think we can all agree that everything works better with diamond … if you can afford it — !