SAPPHIRE SIRENS For over 2,000 years sapphires have been the gemstones of Eastern and Western aristocracy, and more recently Hollywood ‘royalty’. Believed to symbolize romantic love, truth, and fidelity, they are also thought to have potent properties. Medieval kings wore the gem around their necks as a defense from harm, and by the 11th century, sapphires were chosen for ecclesiastical rings. In Roman times it was believed that if someone was untruthful or impure, the sapphire’s color would change or fade. Around the 14th and 15th centuries saw the emergence of the first betrothal rings given by royal families and those of means, in which sapphires were favored over other precious gems. Fast forward to the 1930s and ’40s and sapphires were worn to powerful effect by some of Hollywood’s most glamorous leading ladies. Cabochon-cut stones would surge in popularity as movie-goers admired the stone’s beauty on film, as worn by icons such as Jean Harlow and Joan Crawford. Trabert & Hoeffer Inc., one of the first jewelry houses to lend pieces for on-screen credit in movies, designed extraordinary oversized pieces with large colored gems which did not fail to grab the audience’s attention. Actresses of Hollywood’s golden age found these jewels so desirable they purchased items for themselves or received them as gifts from loved ones, and wore the pieces both on and off screen. Trabert & Hoeffer Inc. merged with the Parisian house Mauboussin in 1936, and Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin (T&HM) became one of the most-favored jewelry house to the stars.
Above: Elizabeth Taylor’s Fleur de Mer brooch, a sapphire, diamond, platinum, and gold brooch by Tiffany & Co. designer Jean Schlumberger. Elizabeth Taylor wore this brooch in various ways, including in her hair. © TIFFANY & CO.
Opposite page: Carole Lombard wearing her star sapphire clipped to her hat. © CORBIS
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Opposite page: Portrait of Mary Pickford in 1934 wearing sapphire and diamond bracelets. © CONDÉ NAST ARCHIVE/CORBIS
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The company’s knowledge and passion for high-quality gems led it to acquire, among other famous stones, a 181.82-carat violet-blue star sapphire, which though mined in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was called ‘the Star of Bombay’. The most exceptional of all the star sapphires, it features a six-rayed star, or ‘asterism’. This star effect is created by thousands of needle-like inclusions crisscrossing the crystalline structure of the gem. The three crossed lines of the star sapphire represent faith, hope and destiny, sometimes associated with three angels who offer protection to those who wear the stone. From the 1920s the gem was owned by the legendary silent film star Mary Pickford. Known to audiences as ‘America’s Sweetheart’ for her acting roles, Pickford was also an enterprising businesswoman. In 1919 she had her own production company and co-founded the film studio United Artists Corporation, along with Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, and her soon-to-be husband, the swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks Sr. The studio gave them complete artistic control over their movies as well as control over profits generated from their films. In 1920, after obtaining divorces from their spouses, long-term friends Pickford and Fairbanks married. ‘Pickfair’, their Beverly Hills mansion, became the venue for dazzling highsociety parties, second only in importance to the White House. Though on screen Pickford’s jewelry tastes were more subdued, often little more than a strand of pearls, in her personal jewelry collection she favored large star sapphires and star rubies. She had an eye and a desire for important jewels. Not long after they married, Fairbanks acquired for her the Star of Bombay, which Trabert & Hoeffer had had set into a platinum ring. Pickford also owned other fine pieces from the 1920s through to ’40s—including smaller Art Deco styles from Cartier. In the 1920s it became fashionable to wear bracelets adorned with a multitude of gem charms representing personal and professional milestones, and Pickford owned a number of these. Her other major pieces were all Trabert & Hoeffer, such as a starburst motif of diamonds that she would wear on a ribbon bracelet, or as a clip; and wide diamond bracelets with a cabochon sapphire in the center that she would wear with her rings. As times changed, and as a loyal client of T&HM, she also would trade out old styles and purchase new ones. Upon her death, Pickford bequeathed the Star of Bombay, which she had owned for almost sixty years, to the Smithsonian. The ‘sapphire craze’ spread across Hollywood, reflecting the extravagance of the golden age. Joan Crawford was renowned for her love of the gemstone—so much so that the press dubbed her suite of sapphires ‘Joan Blue’. Through a succession of four marriages and three divorces Crawford received gifts of fine jewels, and also purchased pieces for herself. The bigger, the better—and the showier—was the way in which she liked to wear her jewelry. She often attached clips to necklaces or wore them attached to head wraps with big gemstone necklaces. One of Crawford’s favorite jewelers was Raymond C. Yard, who originally worked for Marcus & Co. He launched his own company in 1922 to serve New York’s elite. He had a very discreet, exclusive clientele of socialites and, in the late ’30s, after beginning to work her way into becoming one of Hollywood’s top earning and successful stars, Crawford also worked her way onto Yard’s select roster. Crawford’s first marriage to Douglas Fairbanks Jr—whose father had lavished Mary Pickford with some of the finest sapphires in the world—ended in divorce in 1933. When Crawford became engaged to actor and frequent co-star Franchot Tone, Yard
created an engagement ring featuring a 70-carat star sapphire. She already owned a 72carat emerald-cut sapphire ring, and would often wear them together. The most publicized Yard piece in Crawford’s collection was a bracelet with three star sapphires of 73.15 carats, 63.61 carats, and 57.65 carats in a wide platinum Art Deco bracelet, featuring fine piercing work with baguette, half-moon and marquise-shaped diamonds. All of actor William Powell’s leading ladies, both on and off screen, wore star sapphires, and they were all true blue in their choice of jewelry. Powell bought his second wife, actress Carole Lombard, a star sapphire ring when they married in 1931. Though they stayed together for just twenty-six months, the pair remained friends and continued to star in movies together, including My Man Godfrey in 1936. In this romantic comedy Lombard plays ‘Irene Bullock’, a wacky heiress who hires a guy who is down on his luck (‘Godfrey Godfrey’ / Powell) to be the family butler, and then falls in love with him. Lombard opted to wear her own jewelry in the film, including a huge sapphire ring that Powell had bought for her and a 150-carat sapphire, which she purchased and had mounted as a brooch; it could be converted to be worn either as a ring or a pendant. In the film, she wears the brooch at the neckline of a full-length evening gown with a duster.
Above: Carole Lombard wearing the megawatt star sapphire ring given to her by her then husband William Powell in 1931. After their divorce, they remained friends and even starred together in the movie My Man Godfrey in 1936. © SUNSET BOULEVARD/CORBIS Opposite page: Portrait of Joan Crawford in 1937 wearing her favorite gemstone: sapphires. Because of this, the press dubbed her jewels “Joan Blue.” © THE KOBAL COLLECTION/MGM/GEORGE HURRELL
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Another avid collector of sapphires and an actress who knew her own mind was Jean Harlow. Harlow understood her undeniable sex appeal and how to play it up in her film roles and for the public. While it is now common to clip brooches to the skinny strap of a gown, pin them in the hair, scatter them at the waist of a dress or a neckline, Harlow provocatively wore her jewelry like this long before its time. On the thinnest of straps of a gown she would place large jeweled clips. She also wore them quite sensually, attached to the V of a backless dress. There was a story doing the rounds in Hollywood that when leading man William Powell first proposed to Jean Harlow in 1936, he offered her a beautiful, but traditional, diamond ring; Harlow accepted the proposal but refused the ring. The platinum-blonde bombshell supposedly felt a large star sapphire would better suit her personal style. Powell purchased a large sapphire. Newspapers and gossip columns talked about her showing it off on set of the comedy Libeled Lady, never taking it off, and speculated about whether she and Powell were really engaged. There were also rumors about among their other actors and actress about why they never married—mostly that the studio did not approve. Harlow was still wearing the ring on the set of her final film, Saratoga in 1937, when she was taken seriously ill, and died with Powell at her side.
Jean Harlow wearing her singular statement star sapphire ring in the 1937 film Personal Property. The ring was given to her by William Powell. Š SNAP/REX
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Left: Portrait of Myrna Loy wearing her star sapphire ring, which was thought to have been created by Paul Flato. © CORBIS
Below: Neil Lane acquired Myrna Loy’s star sapphire ring from her niece after Loy’s passing. © NEIL LANE
Another woman in William Powell’s life was co-star Myrna Loy, who acted with him in fourteen films, including the Thin Man series. The duo were best known for their witty repartee and comeback lines as ‘Nick and Nora Charles’, with Loy in the role of a wealthy heiress married to Powell’s retired detective who never really goes into retirement. Loy also owned an important star sapphire, set into a platinum-leaf mounting with baguette diamonds on the shank. According to the ring’s most recent owner, Hollywood jeweler to the stars and collector, Neil Lane, Myrna Loy wore the sapphire in the Thin Man publicity shots. Lane notes that this particular Art Deco style is truly reflective of the golden age of Hollywood. It is thought the ring was created by Paul Flato.
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The Duchess of Windsor played a part in the renewed popularity of sapphires in the 1950s when she was seen wearing a Cartier three-dimensional panther clip brooch, featuring a 152.35-carat Kashmir cabochon sapphire, designed in 1949. The Duchess was partial to sapphires in a variety of pieces: she, like many wearers, believed the gem brought out the color of her eyes—in Wallis’s case, dark sapphireblue. This classic Cartier sapphire is set in white gold and platinum with single-cut white diamonds. It has yellow pear-shaped diamond eyes with smaller sapphire cabochons for the feline’s spots. It was designed under the tutelage of Cartier’s creative director Jeanne Toussaint, whom he nicknamed ‘the Panther’. Toussaint created many different versions of the powerful cat. Her prowess and instincts about jewelry and what women wanted were instrumental in the panther becoming synonymous with projecting an aura of confidence and fearlessness. In December 2013 a select number of jewels that were formerly the property of the late Duke and Duchess of Windsor went up for auction for a second time at Sotheby’s in London as part of the auction house’s ‘Fine Jewels’ sale. One of these was a light and dark sapphire link bracelet designed by Cartier in 1945.
Above: The Duchess of Windsor’s link bracelet in tonal hues of deep and pale blue sapphires, designed by Cartier in 1945. © SOTHEBY’S Opposite page: The first “Panther” created for The Duchess of Windsor was in gold and surmounted an emerald cabochon. Jeanne Trouissant’s mastery of the “cats” grew and innovations in techniques were made, which produced this three-dimensional platinum panther atop a 152.35-carat Kashmir sapphire cabochon. STUDIO GÉRARD, CARTIER COLLECTION © CARTIER
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Keeping jewels in the family is not just part of the royal tradition. Women everywhere inherit keepsakes and heirlooms from their loved ones. But those that are passed down from princess to princess mark an occasion in history. Unfortunately Princess Diana was not alive to see her eldest son Prince William marry, or the moment when William presented Kate Middleton with his mother’s engagement ring: a 12carat oval blue Ceylon sapphire, surrounded by solitaire diamonds, set in 18K white gold. It was in 1981 that Lady Diana Spencer, a nineteen-year-old English rose with a zest for life and a modern, relaxed aura, became engaged to the Queen’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales. It is said that Diana chose the iconic engagement ring from a selection shown by Crown jewelers Garrard of Mayfair, after dinner at Windsor Castle. Almost instantly after the engagement was announced, companies around the world started producing imitations of the ring, or designing rings that had a similar look and feel, such as those with an antique or period style with a center sapphire stone. Diana brought the fiery blue stone back as the engagement ring to own, and she continued to wear it even after her divorce from Prince Charles. After Diana’s death in 1997, her sons were allowed to select mementoes from her jewelry collection held at Kensington Palace. Twelve-year-old Harry picked out the sapphire ring, and William chose his mother’s yellow gold Cartier watch. Apparently, when William announced his intention to wed Kate Middleton, the brothers swapped mementoes. Asked in a television interview about his marriage proposal, William told the journalist that he had been carrying the ring around for weeks and ‘literally would not let it go’: ‘It’s my mother’s engagement ring so I thought it was quite nice… she’s not going to be around to share in any of the fun and excitement of it all—this was my way of keeping her close to it all... it’s a sapphire with some diamonds… I am sure everyone recognizes it from previous times.’ As Kate Middleton lifted her hand to show the ring to the cameras, a media blitz was created around the world; jewelry stores’ phones began to ring off the hook and designers started designing the next wave of sapphire rings.
Top left and opposite page: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke’s parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana on their respective engagement days, both wearing the ring designed by crown jewelers, Garrad. © STR/EPA/CORBIS Left: Kate Middleton’s engagement ring from Prince William, originally given to Princess Diana by Prince Charles. © TIM ROOKE/REX
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