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Feeling in the Pink? (7)
2010-11-27 16:58
Ron LeBlanc has been a gemologist for thirty years. He is currently the founder
and CEO of a company that owns a pink sapphire deposit in Madagascar and
he is in the final stages of launching a jewellery line based in
Monaco
It was common for Ziegfeld to give his dancers expensive silk panties just before they went on stage. When asked by the chorus girls why he wanted them to wear silk panties when no one in the audience would know, he replied ‘Because you’ll know that you’re wearing them.’
Authentic gem stones of rarity and beauty have the same effect on the people who wear them. We have to imagine ourselves as kings and queens, worthy of adornment and celebration. For if we do not believe we are of merit, surely the universe and its inhabitants will not treat us as such.
To speak in Monaco about the ‘religion of luxury’ risks the redundancy of preaching to the choir. Most everyone has lots of shiny bits and pieces dangling from their wrists, neck, fingers and toes. It’s a brave and confident town; one that is not cobbled by modesty or restraint.
All too often the coloured bauble has been relegated to costume jewellery; the fast-food of the jewellery industry, and like fast food, a mere fleeting satisfaction. Granted, it is an essential indulgence from time to time.
My business and bias is coloured stones and gratefully I have been around long enough to witness a surge in the popularity of these stones. Bravo to the great H. Stern, the patron saint, who claimed and perpetrated coloured stones for decades, until taste and sensibilities matched his ardour.
Coloured stones like sapphire, emerald and ruby, and of late, so-called semi-precious stones like amethyst, citrine and tourmaline are the new ‘go to’ stones for many jewelers. And jewellers are thrilled. It is interesting to note that the Gemological Institute of America has banned the use of the terms semi-precious and precious from their nomenclature, as every stone can theoretically be both. A diamond can be as dull as a shag rug and a piece of Iranian turquoise can be priceless.
Much of the understandable reluctance towards coloured stones from buyers and sellers alike is the difficulty of assigning value. Unlike the ubiquitous monochromatic diamond, where there is a universally accepted language of value, coloured stones remain subject to interpretations. This is primarily due to exuberant spectrums of colour, unpredictable sources, instability of price, no consolidated control and, regrettably, the diabolical treatment and manipulation of colour by nefarious characters around the globe. These uncertainties are offloaded onto the seller and present a particular challenge when coupled with the need to educate the customer and dispel trepidations.
Regrettably, coloured stones are still a virgin experience for some customers and thereby subject to criticism and fear.
Incontrovertibly, the up-side for the designer using coloured stones is manifold. They are blessed with a wide reach of freedom; gifted and reenergized by a palette of colour to anoint and create value. Once the language of colour is understood the possibilities in expression are boundless.
Surely everyone has heard the best tag line of the twentieth century, ‘a diamond is forever’. This brilliant and bewitching concept has us all agog with the specter of the eternal dimensions of love, as represented symbolically by a sparkly piece of carbon. How many diamond rings, either by dint of inheritance or as mementos of a love lost, are tucked away in safes and the back of drawers because, after all, ‘a diamond is forever’? Dewy-eyed brides, thinking of their wedding day, cannot but bestow mythical qualities on this totem of love eternal.
And just like when water turns to wine in front of a new love; or a lock of hair in a silver box evokes a trumpet of noisy memories, so too do we suffuse the diamond with powers.
It is time to treat coloured stones with the same respect and reverence; and bring them to the centre… and perhaps even relegate the exalted diamond to the role of wing man.
Cleopatra had her emeralds, Nefertiti her turquoise necklace, Lady Di her blue sapphire engagement ring, and the church had their bishop’s rings of Imperial Russian amethyst. Throughout history, gods, royalty and men and women of distinction have displayed their individuality, divinity, blessedness and power with coloured stones.
Women are now breaking symbolic bonds, leaving one hand tethered to tradition and claiming the other hand for themselves. Unshackled and self-reliant they are demanding new symbols that proclaim their elevated status. The basis and logic of conformity dissolves as impression turns to expression with broad strokes of colour - and I say diamonds may very well be forever but coloured stones are for today - hallelujah.
Ron LeBlanc