If there’s any source you can trust to know precisely what’s in style in Hollywood, it’s the aptly named InStyle magazine. And at the posh publication’s 5th annual awards season diamond fashion show preview luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel, hosted in conjunction with the Diamond Information Center, it was clear what was in style for the Golden Globes: diamonds, diamonds and even more diamonds.
“We have a collection here that’s worth $40 million,” Kelly McMahon, spokesperson for the Diamond Information Center, revealed. “It’s from virtually all the world’s leading jewelers–Chanel, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chopard, Martin Katz, Fred Leighton–all the names that you see on the red carpet. This is the fifth year that we’ve been doing this pre-Golden Globes fashion show and it’s a way that stylists and celebrities can come and pick out their jewelry for the awards show. It’s a great lady’s lunch.”
Indeed, the elegant afternoon attracted a star-studded guest list that included Jessica Alba and Globe nominee Patricia Arquette. And many of the guests had definite ideas just why women love to be dripping in diamonds.
“They just make you feel more than what you’re worth,” said Las Vegas star Molly Sims. “They add a little sparkle to something that might be dowdy.” I wondered if men really understand the power the dazzlers have for the female of the species. “I think that they get it when they see the look on the girl’s face. Do men get it? Well, I think that they get it now, with all the ice and the bling-bling that they’re all wearing. So apparently so.”
“It just makes you sparkle,” claimed Brenda Strong, the voice of Desperate Housewives’ disembodied narrator Mary-Alice. “There’s this internal kind of light that comes out through the diamonds and for me my mother was never a big jewelry wearer, but I admired women in Hollywood who wear them like Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, and I just thought that it was so elegant and magnificent and I’m so happy to be able to share in the celebration today.”
“I think that I can compare the sparkle in a diamond to the sparkle in someone’s eye when they love you and they’re moved by you,” confessed House star Lisa Edelstein. “I think that’s what it is about shiny things that draws you in. A beautifully designed piece just feels luxurious and pretty and feminine and you’re wearing art, beautiful art.”
“This is so materialistic, and I’m not necessarily a materialistic person, but it really makes me feel like I’ve made it,” said Sara Rue, star of the sitcom Less Than Perfect. “It makes me feel in a way that I’ve achieved the thing where I can be luxurious and kind of decadent for no reason other than just seeing those things. I mean, I definitely didn’t come from a wealthy background and so for me to wear a quarter of a million dollars worth of diamonds, just to go to lunch, is pretty cool.”
“It’s one of the most amazing feelings that you can get,” agreed Desperate Housewives’ Andrea Bowen. “It just makes you feel so beautiful and I haven’t found another piece of jewelry that I like as much as diamonds. There’s just something about them that’s extremely special and it just kind of makes you glow when you put them on. And so I love that, and it kind of makes you feel like a princess.”
But not all the ladies who lunched were starry-eyed over the rocks. “I’m so terrible. I don’t even like jewelry,” said Golden Globe nominee Maria Bello, who nevertheless gamely matched some loaned Neil Lane jewelry with her canary yellow Donna Karan dress. “I have some of my grandmother’s vintage jewelry, but I’m not really into it. I have no real jewelry. I have a pair of little diamond studs that my little boy’s dad bought me. But that’s it.”
Renowned Beverly Hills jeweler Martin Katz, whose gems will adorn Felicity Huffman and other nominees at this year’s Golden Globes, was on hand to describe the trends he expected to see during the 2006 awards show season. “I think that we’re going to continue to see a lot of long earrings, waterfall type earrings, maybe some with circles and some very straight lines,” said Katz. “You’ll see a little departure from the old chandelier style, but you’ll still see a lot of that long flowing earring.”
The DIC’s McMahon was also offering advice to attending stars–including Allison Janney, Elizabeth Banks, Melissa George, Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon and Jane Leeves–as they looked for the perfect accessory for their Globes gown. “If they want old school Hollywood glamour I would suggest Neil Lane. They actually have some pieces on some of Hollywood’s biggest stars like Gloria Swanson that could actually wear a piece that old Hollywood had way back. If they want to go edgy, I’d say probably go to the New York designers like a VBH or a Renee Lewis or another great new designer who is Steven Webster who did Christina Aguilera’s ring. He just came out with a collection called Femme Fatale which is really edgy, and it’s actually got this piece right here. There are big talisman pendants and are really interesting.”
At least on of the attendees wasn’t about to be picky. “I don’t even own a diamond,” said Walk the Line star Ginnifer Goodwin, a first-time attendee. “I would love to walk out with a diamond. It’s a girl’s best friend.”
“Talk to me Harry Winston! Tell me all about it!”
So cooed Marilyn Monroe when she sang “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” and, indeed, the jewelry giant Harry Winston proved it was a diamond’s best friend when it invited Hollywood’s glitterati to get an eyeful of its glittery gems at the opening of its brand-new three-story flagship store on Beverly Hills’ ritzy Rodeo Drive just days before the Golden Globes.
Things looked positively desperate for awhile–as in Desperate Housewives. I spotted itty-bitty Eva Longoria on the third floor balcony that overlooked the Street of Dreams, while blonde bombshell Nicolette Sheridan trolled the gem-festooned first floor hand-in-hand with her former flame Michael Bolton, and the series’ teen contingent was represented by BCBG-clad Andrea Bowen, who was getting a good start cultivating her taste in high-class gems.
I asked Eva if she’d been bouncing around BevHills all week locking down her Golden Globes gown, but she was serenely unstressed. “It’s been really tranquil,” she smiled. “I picked my dress out the day I got nominated.” I caught Eva chatting up her new friend Ludacris, posing for photos together while, out of the shot, they were plugging each other’s digits into their respective cell phones. Eva’s friends were funny: “Oh, has she got that damn cell phone out again?” She laughed and checked her email, and a message prompted her to decide her posse was on the way out to the next haute hot spot.
Even the guys were awed by Winston’s brilliant display of bling. “I’m a big fan of diamonds,” Ludacris told me after Eva bolted, and the rap star was even more blown away by the acting accolades he’d been collecting since appearing in Crash and Hustle & Flow. “This has been the greatest time in the world,” Ludacris confessed. “Never in a million years would I have expected that the second movie I ever did would have been nominated for so many awards. I just feel like I’m making a new chapter in my life, one of those historic chapters, and it just feels good. I’ve raised the bar and the level so high for myself that I can only continue to do good projects right now.”
A multifaceted array of entertainers enjoyed cocktails and finger food at the swank soiree, including ingénue Emmy Rossum, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, actor Christopher McDonald, Stacked‘s Melissa Jarrett Winouker, E-Ring’s Kelly Rutherford and Mrs. Marilyn Manson herself, the sultry striptease artiste Dita Von Tease, who was all dressed up for the occasion in all black, natch, and sky-high stiletto heels that kept her on the tippiest of tiptoes. The rest of the party was populated primarily by the 90210 Old Guard – the Fred Haymans, Vidal Sassoon, legendary Variety columnist Army Archerd, zillionaire doyennes Nancy and Barbara Davis and the shining lights of the Beverly Hills political and retail community, while DreamWorks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg served as the honorary host of the bash.
The new Harry Winston store was sumptuously appointed with fabric-lined walls, high vaulted ceilings with dramatic chandeliers, and a tastefully restrained series of showcase cabinets filled with, of course, diamonds, diamonds and more diamonds against black velvet. However, as I waited at the valet stand and chatted with actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, there was a definite buzz that expressed the evening’s only disappointment: that there was a decided lack of a gift bag bulging with Winston’s dazzling gems.
