Star battle of the bling

The Academy Awards are the Super Bowl of sparkle, at least to the jewellers vying to adorn all those famous ears, necks and wrists.

Martin Katz, who has outfitted Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet and hundreds of other stars with bling for more than 25 years, said the process used to be more about personal connections.

‘‘In the early days, through the 90s and even mid-2000s, we had much more direct contact with the celebrity. They would come in personally, most of them. We would work together, choose things. Today it is morphed into the stylists. They control that,’' he said in a recent interview.

So how does it all work when so many of the world’s top jewellery companies are in the game?

Stylists often choose four or six different looks per gown picked for a celebrity client. That can mean they’ve collected hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars worth of jewels.

‘‘Security is part of the process,’’ said Forevermark Diamonds’ Kristen Trustey.

‘‘Our diamonds are wellprotected from the time the stylists are visiting the suite to when we are doing drops to celebrities’ homes or hotels with armoured trucks and guards, and of course insurance.’’

But it’s a waiting game as to what jewels are worn.

On average, Katz said, most A-listers wear between US$200,000 to US$1 million worth of jewellery each for big red carpets. But a star may exceed that in a single piece, wearing a US$5m diamond necklace, for instance.

As a rule, Katz said he doesn’t go over US$1m in borrowed gems.

‘‘At the Oscars, the biggest risk is that a piece of jewellery might fall off a celebrity unnoticed,’' he said.

‘‘Maybe a bracelet becomes unhinged, falls on the red carpet, gets kicked, or an earring falls off and gets kicked and nobody notices. They don’t notice until after it’s gone. We hold our breaths until all the babies come home the next day.’'

Celebrity branding is a huge business bump overall for jewellers, and red carpets are a huge part of that.

Aside from the customary media coverage, stars bring attention to the jewellery they wear on their social media accounts. A celebrity’s reach there can bring in millions of views, leading some companies to pay the famous to borrow jewels for social media purposes alone.

But not Martin Katz. As a small independent jeweller without stores all over the world, it doesn’t make sense for him to build that expense into his advertising budget.

Trustey would not comment on whether Forevermark Diamonds pays stars to wear their jewels.

Trends in red carpet jewellery are hard to identify since there are so many evergreen looks.

Forevermark’s Trustey said ear climbers and chandelier earrings were big this awards season, starting with the Golden Globes. Kate Hudson was among the stars to don climbers on that carpet.

‘‘Also, I would say statement necklaces. Allison Williams wore an incredible 43-carat bib necklace to the Golden Globes, so expect to see a lot more of those,’’ Trustey said.

Katz said the Oscars prompt many celebrities to gravitate toward diamonds, but he’s not entirely sold on the practice.

‘‘To me, sometimes there is more of a stylised fashionable statement that’s made with colour,’' he said.

Coloured jewels can read younger and more relatable, ‘‘so that it doesn’t look like they’re borrowed,’’ Katz explained.

But diamonds, for many, are forever.

Trustey recalled the 2014 Academy Awards, when Margot Robbie dyed her blonde hair dark brown and wore a classic diamond necklace.

‘‘It was her first time there. It was right after the Wolf of Wall Street and she came out channelling old Hollywood glamour and she was wearing a 60-carat diamond Riviera necklace as well as a 14-carat ring, and her overall look, I would say, was about US$2.5m,’’ she said.

Trustey said Forevermark Diamonds will customise jewellery for red carpets.

Last year, celebrity stylist Karla Welch designed a pair of diamond ear dusters for Sarah Paulson and recently for Elisabeth Moss when she won her Emmy.

Once the jewels are returned, the jeweller can try to sell them as is. More commonly, they are taken apart and repurposed to make other pieces.

Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins were among stars known to collect their own extravagant jewellery, but that practice has dwindled, if not become extinct.

‘‘I used to have a lot of celebrity clients, but over the years what has happened with celebrity as an advertisement is that they are gifted so many things, they are loaned so many things so they virtually have no need to buy anything,’' Katz said. – AP