Sex and the City movie 2 hits theaters this month and I’ll be watching. Yes, I’m a fan. Sex and the City is always good for eye candy and a few laughs with girlfriends.
I’m curious what the big jewelry statement will be. So far I haven’t seen signs of a piece as influential – and central to the plot – as this ring Samantha bids on at a Christie’s auction during movie #1, released in 2008. She’s outbid it turns out, by her boyfriend, who buys the ring for her via phone.
Unaware and increasingly flustered, Samantha bids furiously, as her girlfriends watch – everyone beautifully dressed, of course. As soon as I saw that scene, I had deja vu. It was filmed in the showroom at Christie’s Rockefeller Center, an obvious reference to the sale held there in October 2006 to auction off the jewelry of a newly-divorced Ellen Barkin – including the JAR-designed diamond Gardenia ring I’m wearing above. Looks familiar, right? (Another guilty pleasure: trying on jewelry before an auction. I also tried on Ellen’s spiky wedding ring, but that’s another story.)
While Samantha’s ring ends up selling for $50,000, Barkin’s went for $486,400, four times the estimate. I know because I was in the packed showroom that night. I was the one in the back row with a notepad instead of a paddle, reporting for a magazine on the mother lode of jewelry by Paris-based designer Joel Arthur Rosenthal (JAR). Those 17 JAR pieces brought nearly $8 million of the $20 million worth of jewels sold that night, twice what Christie’s was expecting. “Crazy prices for everything,” a Christie’s spokesperson noted when she sent the final, giddy results.
Samantha (Kim Cattrall) bids for her ring inside Christie’s showroom (photo Craig Blankenhorn, New Line Cinema)
JAR diamond Gardenia ring from Christie’s 2006 sale (Christie’s Images)
Ah, yes, the crazy spending of 2006. Ellen Barkin must be patting herself on the back for her timing. As for Samantha, Carrie and the girls – just how conspicuous will the consumption be in the second movie, two years later?
Patricia Field, stylist behind the original series as well as the 80 costume changes of the first movie, has reported that she didn’t let the recession rein her in. Maybe that’s the right move. After all, we go to the movies to escape reality, right?
Meanwhile, you can still buy knockoffs of Samantha’s two-finger cocktail ring from the 2008 movie from several online merchants, including Amazon. What kind of jewelry will we be coveting after movie 2?
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JAR: designer jewelry as calling card
Revenge: characters studies in jewelry
Van Cleef & Arpels: glamor and invention
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