Call me old fash­ioned, but Ill take glam­orous stars like Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hep­burn and Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor over spoiled pseudo–celebs like Paris Hilton, Ash­lee Simp­son, Nicole Ritchie and their ilk any day of the week. Whereas Old Hol­ly­wood oozed class, sophis­ti­ca­tion and mys­tery, todays over­ex­posed star­lets lack grace­and some­times even tal­ent! Take the way they present them­selves: Todays stars walk the red car­pet barely clothed, drip­ping in out­ra­geous, tacky bling, yam­mer­ing on about their per­sonal lives. Yes­ter­days icon­s­Jackie O and Lady Diana also come to mind­pro­jected a glam­orous ele­gance one would actu­ally strive to emu­late. They dressed with flair, acces­sorized with style and kept their pri­vate lives pri­vate. Whats more, many of the Old Hol­ly­wood elite wore my favorite gem, the pearl, whose lady­like, demure rep­u­ta­tion is so fit­ting for these ele­gant women. Luck­ily for me, and the rest of the world, pearls are mak­ing a big come­back. Lets hope Hol­ly­wood revives old-style lady­like behav­ior along with the lady­like gem. As an homage to Old Hol­ly­wood glam­our, lets take a look at the pearl jew­elry made famous by some of our most beloved female icons.

Eliz­a­beth Taylor

Per­haps the most famous jew­elry col­lec­tor of our time, leg­endary actress Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor also owns the most famous pearl, La Pere­g­rina. Given to her in 1969 by then-husband Richard Bur­ton (yep, hes the one Liz mar­ried twice), La Pere­g­rina, an enor­mous, pear-shaped white pearl, was found by a slave in the early 1500s in the Gulf of Panama. First given as a wed­ding gift to Mary Tudor, the daugh­ter of King Henry VIII, the rare and extra­or­di­nary gem was owned by a suc­ces­sion of roy­alty before being pur­chased at auc­tion by Bur­ton for Tay­lor as a Valen­tines Day gift. (Why she divorced him I dont know. Why she divorced him twice is even more of a mys­tery. Any man who gave me jew­els like that would be a keeper.) After receiv­ing the huge pearl, which was hang­ing from a thin chain, Tay­lor instructed famous jew­elry designer Cartier to cre­ate a ruby and dia­mond neck­lace incor­po­rat­ing the gem. The breath­tak­ing result is absolutely stun­ning. (Search online for a photo; the neck­lace is truly spe­cial.) Trivia: Tay­lor once lost the famous La Pere­g­rina pearl in her home. A fran­tic search turned up the enor­mous white gemin her dogs mouth! Thank good­ness Tay­lor found it before it was scratched!

Mar­i­lyn Monroe

You wouldnt think lus­cious Mar­i­lyn, emu­lated by every mod­ern day celebrity from Madonna to Lind­say Lohan and Christina Aguil­era, would sport a demure sin­gle strand of pearls. With her blonde locks, eye-popping cleav­age and breathy voice, the Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe we love is more over the top than that­but a sin­gle strand of pearls is exactly what she wore. Mar­i­lyn received the lumi­nous salt­wa­ter pearl strand from base­ball slug­ger Joe Dimag­gio, her sec­ond hus­band. Joltin Joe pre­sented Mar­i­lyn with the gor­geous 16-inch Miki­moto neck­lace made from forty-four matched round white Japan­ese akoyas while they were on their hon­ey­moon. Per­haps Dimag­gio, in giv­ing lus­cious Mar­i­lyn the gor­geous pearl strand, was try­ing to turn the sexy star into the per­fect 1950s house­wife? They were known as Mr. and Mrs. Amer­ica, after all. Alas, their mar­riage lasted but a year.

Audrey Hep­burn

Break­fast at Tiffanys is a clas­sic film not only because its a won­der­ful roman­tic com­edy that stars beloved screen leg­end Audrey Hep­burn, but because it show­cased the wai­flike Ms. Hep­burns ele­gant and effort­less style. The dress she wore in the film, her now-famous sim­ple black sleeve­less style, was the per­fect back­drop for the six-strand pearl and rhine­stone neck­lace she sported as adorable Holly Golightly. (In the film, the beguil­ing but pen­ni­less Golightly would endear­ingly stare in the renowned jew­eler Tiffanys win­dow, day­dream­ing of own­ing the trea­sures within.) Trivia: Hep­burns neck­lace in the film is faux, made from marquise-shaped rhine­stones (not dia­monds!) that cas­cade gor­geously from the imi­ta­tion pearls. Faux or not, the ornate pearl neck­lace looks just gor­geous on Hep­burns grace­ful neck.

Jackie O: Sur­pris­ingly, Jackie Os famous and much-photographed triple strand pearl choker is also sim­u­lated. The gor­geous pearl choker shes known for fea­tured round white pearls on strands of grad­u­ated lengths, and typ­i­fied Jack­ies sig­na­ture crisp, ele­gant style. The neck­laces pop­u­lar­ity went through the roof when Jackie was pho­tographed hold­ing her son John-John while he played with her pearls. Trivia: Jack­ies triple-strand faux pearl neck­lace went up for auc­tion in 1996. The sim­u­lated pearls, nearly val­ue­less were it not for their asso­ci­a­tion with Jackie, were expected to fetch $500-$700. The Franklin Mint bought the piece for $211,500!

Princess Diana

Another beloved icon of style, wealth and class, Princess Dianas most famous pearl piece is prob­a­bly her dan­gling pearl and dia­mond tiara. Dubbed the Cam­bridge Love Knot, this gor­geous tiara was given to the princess by her mother-in-law, the Queen of Eng­land. Copies of Lady Dis pearl tiara are now worn by brides the world over on their wed­ding day. But Lady Di wore the Spencer fam­ily tiara on her wed­ding day, not the Cam­bridge Love Knot, and paired it with a sap­phire and pearl choker she received as a wed­ding gift from her husband-to-be, Prince Charles. Over the top? Not when you con­sider the dress this jew­elry was meant to acces­sorize: Princess Dianas ivory silk gown had a 25-foot long train and was dec­o­rated with 10,000 pearls and sequins. Fit for a princess, indeed.

Other famous pearl admirers

When dish­ing about celebrity pearl jew­elry, no arti­cle would be com­plete with­out men­tion­ing fash­ion maven Coco Chanel, the scrappy French designer who made pearls her sig­na­ture look in the 1920s. Wear­ing pearl ropes as eas­ily as other women wear jeans, Cocos House of Chanel used pearls in many jew­elry pieces, and put out such gor­geous jew­elry as a bracelet made of 105 akoya pearls sur­rounded by dia­monds and gold. Recently, the Paris-based fash­ion house pre­miered its annual jewel col­lec­tion, which fea­tures one-of-a-kind pearl pieces priced from $29,000 to $450,000.

When talk­ing about celebrity pearl jew­elry, we must also men­tion Sarah Jes­sica Parker, the actress and mod­ern day style icon who made lay­ered over­size pearl neck­laces chic in her mem­o­rable Gap ads from last year. Nor can we neglect Rene Russo. The neck­lace the model– turned-actress wore through­out the movie Tin Cup, which fea­tured white pearls evenly spaced on fine chain, received almost as much atten­tion as the Golden Globe-nominated roman­tic com­edy. Renes Tin Cup neck­lace, now a jew­elry sta­ple, sparked a new trend in mod­ern, sophis­ti­cated pearl jew­elry. Today, sev­eral stun­ning vari­a­tions of this sim­ple and ele­gant Tin Cup neck­lace can be found in jew­elry stores worldwide.

Speak­ing of mod­ern chic, Kiera Knightly rocked pearls at the pre­mier of her movie The Black Pearl by sport­ing a black baroque pearl choker made with dif­fer­ent shades of Tahit­ian pearls. (Lucky girl not only gets to wear gor­geous jew­elry, she also gets to work along­side Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp.) Life isnt fair! And we cant for­get style icon Kate Moss; the fash­ion­able model is also fre­quently seen in pearl strands.

So how about it young Hol­ly­wood? Why not drop the out­ra­geous bling, dar­ing dresses and out­landish behav­ior in favor of the lady­like glam­our, sophis­ti­ca­tion and enigma that sur­rounded the screen leg­ends of the past? Amer­ica is sorely lack­ing screen icons that we admire, much less want to emu­late. Lets bring back style, class, and pearls.

A grad­u­ate of the Gemo­log­i­cal Insti­tute of Amer­i­cas Grad­u­ate Pearls pro­gram, Amy Drescher is a fash­ion writer and acces­sories buyer for http://www.moonriverpearls.com She wel­comes your ques­tions. Reach her at adrescher@moonriverpearls.com

Author: Amy Drescher
Arti­cle Source: EzineArticles.com
Pro­vided by: Con­sole game news

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

• Most Notorious Super Model Sophie Turner
• SI Swimsuit Issue: Olympic Edition
• The Best Trailer Mash-Ups of All Time (Videos)
• Sexy Tom Boy Nicole Marsel
• Bodypaint Babe Bonanza: American Sport Edition