Placing Bling Is a Competitive Thing at the Oscars
Placing bling is a competitive thing on Oscar's red carpet, where diamonds are ad dollars, too
Breathtaking baubles fill the glass cases at Martin Katz's jewelry showroom near Rodeo Drive, but during Oscar week, he keeps some of the most impressive pieces in a semiprivate back room.
That's where millions of dollars in diamonds — bracelets, earrings, necklaces, cuff links and flower-shaped brooches — sit on a gray velvet tray, quietly auditioning for a spot on the world's most celebrated red carpet.
It's a competitive week for jewelers and designers, all vying for an invaluable place in Oscar's spotlight.
"It almost becomes a pirhana-like business," Katz says.
It's "staggeringly competitive ... because it's such a fantastic advertisement for the brand," says Sally Morrison, director of the Diamond Information Center, an umbrella organization that promotes the industry. "It's very powerful. They get associated with a celebrity who is looking magnificent, who is at the height of their achievement and all that that implies."
Says stylist Tara Swennen, who is dressing at least one Oscar ingenue this year: "A placement at the Oscars on one of these girls is worth $50 million of advertising."
Such competition complicates the business, says Katz, who first began loaning his gems for red carpet wear in 1991. Where borrowing diamonds was once based strictly on personal relationships, nowadays stylists and celebs can pull in big paychecks for agreeing to promote a particular jeweler's designs, he says.
Some jewelers seek red-carpet placement by designing special pieces with a certain star in mind and hoping she'll wear it, Morrison says, while others cart in truckloads of diamonds and set up suites for stylists making last-minute decisions.
Swennen says she typically picks the dress first, then chooses two or three jewelry looks for her client to consider. She typically turns to designers she works with regularly.
Katz welcomed several celebrity regulars at his showroom on Friday, as well as stylist George Kotsiopoulos, who the jeweler has worked with for nearly 10 years.
