August 2011 Archives

Last year, about this time, Piaget released a series of six drink-themed rings as part of their Limelight collection; This year they have released seven more of the Cocktail rings.  These are not quite as inventive, I thought the rocks in last years "Whiskey on the Rocks" was particularly amusing, but more elaborate. Sadly this year we don't get recipes.

Golden Nectar A large cushion-cut citrine set in yellow gold with a few diamonds.	Lemon Fizz The drink is a large faceted yellow quartz garnished with a slice of lemon in peridot and diamond and a pair of rubilite and emerald cherries, all set in 18kt yellow gold
Tutti Frutti Sadly not ice-cream sold by Chico Marx, this seems to be a drink with one of everything. The ring follows suite, with white and yellow diamonds, emeralds, red spinels, orange sapphires and one each rubelite, amethyst, garnet, citrine and beryl, all set in yellow gold	Blue Sea A giant aquamarine is set in white gold and garnished with a yellow gold branch of fire-opal berries. A few diamonds are set on the shank of the ring as well
Deep Purple Unrelated to Prince, this features a large Tanzanite as the drink proper, another peridot and diamond lemon slice and a carved citrine as a cocktail umbrella, all in 18k yellow gold.	Mai Tai A large cushion-cut Morganite, an unusual pink stone in the beryl family, sits among ruby and tzavorite strawberries and a tzavorite sprig of mint. The ring is constructed of 18k white gold and a few diamonds (286 to be exact) as garnish
Watermelon Here rubelite represents both the drink, as a large cushion-cut stone, and the fruit garnish, as unfaceted slices. The small watermelon seeds are probably cabuchon-cut black sapphire, though that info is not listed in the press-release. Yellow and white diamonds and emeralds complete the illusion.

(source)

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A new collection from De Grisogono was announced today (apparently they do their press releases on Sunday) with just a few pieces, all fruit.  I don't usually like his work (see previous examples), but these aren't awful.  They're well rendered, not overly gaudy and taught me a new French word: Pastèques means watermelon, the first pair of pieces.

Watermelon

Watermelon Earrings - White gold set with red and black sapphires, emeralds and peridots. As he's always so proud of being one of the first jewelers to use black diamonds, I'm surprised Fawaz Gruosi didn't use them here.	Watermelon pendent, of the same materials

Melon

Melon Earrings - Tzavorite and Peridot set in yellow gold form the melon. The flower scar at the bottom of each is a single yellow sapphire, a nice little touch	Melon Necklace - same materials as the earrings

Orange

Orange Pendent - cabochon orange sapphires represent the segments and faceted ones are the skin. The white pinth is done in diamonds	Orange ring - same materials

(Photos by Monique Bernaz, source )

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Something is always a bit odd about seeing accurate color photos of WWII.  I know Kodachrome was invented in 1935, but in my mind WWII is a black-and-white war.  The Atlantic, as part of their 20-week retrospective on WWII in photography has tracked down some unusual color shots of the early war.

A woman polishing the plastic nose-cone of a Douglass B-17 Flying Fortress.


There are plenty more pictures in the original article, or go direct to the source, the OWI collection at the Library of Congress

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While in New York a few weeks back I wandered through what has become the high-end jewelry district, Madison Ave from 55-75.  I spotted these two pieces in the windows of DeGrisogono, a brand as famous these days for managing to not go bankrupt as anything else.  Both are dolphin-motif bracelets, but I know very little else about them

Dolphin cuff - Sapphire animal set on a wide shagreen (tanned and polished stingray-skin) cuff	Hinged Dolphin Bangle - pink sapphires(?) and diamonds set on yellow gold with cabochon sapphires for eyes

The images are mine

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