Bigger Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
nytimes.com
Feeling extra guilt-tripped this Valentine's Day, big spender? Alan
Greenspan may have inflation under control, but it doesn't look that
way in the diamond business -- and certainly not in those rarefied realms
where size of heart is conspicuously if not touchingly linked to size of
wallet.
Poor men with bucks. They don't stand a
chance, not with the world's largest
producer of diamonds, DeBeers, spending
$60 million this year just to advertise its
rocks, often with ego-taunting slogans like,
"Give her something that won't wilt in a
week." Now that's cruel.
Love has always had its mercenary aspects,
but in this booming economy they have been
starkly magnified. On Tuesday, for example,
Fox is airing "Who Wants to Marry a
Multi-Millionaire?" in which 50 female
contestants will be whittled down, beauty
pageant style, to five finalists, all in wedding
gowns, one of whom will be proposed to
and married on the air, live, by a willing
millionaire.
Yet nothing refracts the current climate like the diamond. Last week the
diamond retailer Mondera kicked off its Web site, Mondera.com, with a
bash at the Havana Club at Top of the Sixes. There diamond-draped
models mingled with Wall Street brokers, Upper East Side bachelors
and James Gandolfini -- TV's Tony Soprano -- as the guys partook of
single-malt scotches, cigars, straight-razor shaves and shoeshines.
All the pampering and advertising seem to be paying off. "The diamond
market is up 12 percent," said Joan Parker, the director of the diamond
information center at J. Walter Thompson, DeBeers's advertising agency.
Another key indicator -- DeBeers sales of rough diamonds -- surged 57
percent last year to a record $5.24 billion, up from $3.35 billion in 1998.
The upward trend is not lost on women in certain circles. Take Anna
Rothschild, a 31-year-old Manhattanite just getting divorced from her
second husband. Her first, a stockbroker, gave her a five-carat, round
diamond set in platinum from Harry Winston. Her second husband gave
her a six-carat, emerald-cut diamond with trilliums on the side. She
designed it with him at a private jeweler (cost: about $75,000).
"Personally," Ms. Rothschild said, "I would have preferred 10 carats."
But husband No. 2, an English businessman, "thought that was vulgar and
inappropriate. He wanted a more understated type of style."
Next time around, Ms. Rothschild said, "I would like at least an 8-carat
canary diamond. They are much more rare than just a regular diamond,
and I've tried on my friends' rings and I know it looks good on my
finger."
"See, if you're medium-boned, even four carats can look small on your
body," she added.
In fact, engagement rings of four carats or more are not uncommon in
Upper East Side social circles, and many women echo Ms. Rothschild's
view that a smaller diamond might get lost visually on a woman of any
heft. At Tiffany, for example, insiders were horrified that Jerry Seinfeld
only bought a two-carat ring for his new bride, Jessica Sklar. "Couldn't
he afford more? Really," said one employee, who didn't want to give her
name.
But it's not just about size. It's about cut too. Both the emerald cut
(rectangular) and the once-rare asscher cut are popular now. The
asscher cut yields a very deep stone and is considered more understated
-- as if to say, "I have more substance than flash.".
Muffie Potter-Aston, an executive vice president of Van Cleef & Arpels,
has an asscher-cut diamond of over 15 carats. She says her husband, a
plastic surgeon, Sherrell Aston, "loves me a lot."
Men are clearly feeling the pressure. Mark Simone, a Manhattan
bachelor and cable television host, said, "I see guys buy zillion-dollar
rings because it's a big blinking neon sign that says, 'I got a lot of money.'
" Most women he knows want rings "as big as an ashtray," he said. And
men deliver. "The women spend 20 minutes talking about the ring and
three minutes talking about how they met the guy," he said.
But what if you're a poor sap who can only afford, say, a carat?
"I'm sorry, I don't meet anyone like that," said Ms. Rothschild, who
nevertheless feels she must refrain from diamond-wearing for the time
being.
"We don't want men to think I'm married," she said. "How will I meet my
third husband?"
"So much oppression,
Can't keep track of it no more.
So much oppression,
Can't keep track of it no more.
Sons becoming husbands to their mothers,
And old men turning young daughters into whores. |
