Where Tanzanite comes from. #JewelWatch
(If you like my nerding out topics, you would like Milo. He’s got a degree in anthro or archeology, can’t remember which.)
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Image of a Cartier cigarette case, 1930s. Art Deco. Circles of dark blue lapis lazuli, with squares of turquoise and stripes of both at the top and bottom edges. As far as I can tell, there is no attached cigarette lighter. (Some cigarette cases had a lighter built in. Very slick.)
It's all in the Alt, my lovelies. Trying to get into the habit. #JewelWatch
How crazy can jewelry making get?
Welcome to ancient China.
The springs rolled together are very similar to chain-link fences. #JewelWatch
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A sane discussion about purple gold. “More of a rock” made with gold and aluminum.
The jeweler is amazing; he starts with the very basic and eventually piles on enough info for chemists.
#JewelWatch
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Welcome to the modern gem trade: synthetic stones, industrial cutting, some kind of iridescent coating at the end. Notice the size difference, start to finish. Even rough cut, they still lose a lot of carats to cutting. #JewelWatch
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Great discussion of some of the issues with historic jewelry. Bet you there are bodies in the road between Baghdad and Liz. #JewelWatch
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I saw this cat and knew it was cital to the #JewelWatch filks over here. Kitty looks like I feel, wearing a magnificent necklace.
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VIa @notbeforenoon.bsky.social
Because they didn’t understand the geological classification, they often used what we call semiprecious if it was pretty enough.
And so, lots of really good quartz jewelry. #JewelWatch
An image of Queen Mary of Denmark, a pretty dark-haired woman. She is wearing a cream colored lace blouse, ginormous diamond teardrop earrings, and a bandeau tiara, a low strip of large diamonds.
A closeup of the tiara, showing the stones, the collet settings (an old combo of prong setting, and bezel settings. It also shows the frame of the tiara, a curve of white metal running under the strip of diamonds, to hold them up above her hair and give her something to put hair pins around.
Woot woot! Queen Mary of Denmark has a newish bandeau tiara! Made of diamonds taken out of a belt from the 1840s, the articles say they are 'old cut' and may I say, they're enormous. A simple row of ginormous diamonds. She knows how to make a statement. #JewelWatch
Image of an opal ring by Velyan. White Ethiopian opal, 10.5ct oval cabochon, eight prong setting. The sides of the actual ring are covered in stylized yellow gold leaves with itty bitty Paraiba tourmaline making the central leaf ridge. Under the leaves are very small pave diamonds.
Look what just wandered across my computer screen. Yum.
Details in the Alt Text. #JewelWatch
And a new diamond cut (need to do that thread), the Sakura cut, developed in Japan, I assume? #jewelwatch
Well, if you like five-petal flowers, maybe?
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An image of Princess Kate, with a background of red drapery and gilding and candles. It is a head shot, and she is wearing a blue evening gown you can just see on her shoulder, and a fairly large tiara. It is on her head crooked, both horizontally and vertically. She looks like a dumbass.
Okay, lots of buzz over Kate Wales turning up in the Oriental Circlet tiara. #JewelWatch
Data point one, IT IS ON HER HEAD CROOKED.
The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara, GGBI for short. It was given to Queen Mary as a wedding gift, but made famous by Queen Elizabeth, who considered this her go-to tiara. You can see in this image, below the bottom of the tiara is the frame, wrapped in velvet ribbon to match her grey-white hair. Word is that her tailoring crew would dye the velvet to match her hair.
#JewelWatch
A quick thread about tiaras.
More specifically, convertible tiaras.
First of all, tiaras usually have something called a 'frame', which is just what it sounds like. It holds the tiara up above the hair, and gives somewhere to hook hair pins. They are wrapped in velvet ribbon.
Look what showed up when I followed #JewelWatch. 😳😳😳 @juliethecranky.bsky.social
A ring made of a peacock curled around a giant cabochon opal. The peacock seems to be made out of sapphires, diamonds, green garnets, and anodized titanium.
All right I'm not doing a full thread #JewelWatch but I've got some stuff that will induce screaming. From Chopard's 2025 Red Carpet Collection.
First, PEACOCK RING. I'm not even that into peacocks and I want it on the #HeistList
Also #JewelWatch, damn it.
THE PIXEL CUT. Also called the opposing bar cut, IIRC. #JewelWatch
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Ad: For Sale - Trump Inauguration Jewel Watch 🔥 💎 Extremely Limited 022/147 #TrumpInauguration #JewelWatch
Love love the necklace and earrings with the gown.
Wish @juliethecranky.bsky.social was here commenting! #Oscars #JewelWatch
Follow Julie for great #JewelWatch, #FashionWatch, and #StoryTime!
Shades of sapphires, from transparent to black. In chart form.
It appears that Bird Site has eaten a great deal of my threads, so I'm re-creating from scratch. Today we're doing sapphires. #JewelWatch
I screwed up the last time with the color names, so I guess it's a chance to fix that.
First, understand that sapphires come in a bunch of colors.
Photo of the tiara.
Image collage, the original design drawing next to the tiara itself.
Queen Letizia of Spain wearing the Spanish Shell tiara.
Right then, the fifteen most beautiful tiaras although it’s impossible to narrow it but I tried. #JewelWatch
IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER,
The Spanish shell tiara. A historic piece, hundred plus years old. They still have it. That’s Letizia, the current queen.
Queen Mary of England in the Delhi Durbar parure, including some of the Cullinan diamonds and most of the Cambridge emeralds.
Well, I can't find the Cambridge Emeralds thread, so let's do the Delhi Durbar Parure. It's Queen Mary and jewelry, near enough, right?
#JewelWatch #RoyalWatch
All rightie. I mentioned moving some threads from the bird site over to here, and this is the first.
I was talking about the theory that Queen Mary bought up a bunch of Russian jewelry and locked it up for later. #JewelWatch #RoyalWatch
We still have this one, the Russian Nuptial Tiara:
All rightie then. The laptop works, the internet's on, and no lights are flashing in my eyes. We're gonna do something easy, #JewelWatch, a thread of things that stand out in my mind as cool or amazing or funny.
For instance, earrings from DeGrisogono.