Rock on
Diamonds are Oscar Humphries's best friends Buying jewellery is, along with the rubbery smell of hot water bottles and getting upgraded on aeroplanes, one of life's great pleasures. I could buy my fiancée Sara baubles until the cows come home. Trust me, if Bond Street jewellers accepted bad cheques, Sara would look like a pretty, female, heterosexual Liberace — her small fingers crushed beneath the weight of 50-carat stones. Only footballers and hairdressers can successfully carry off bling; the rest of us end up wearing it vicariously through our wives and girlfriends. Buy the woman you love a big enough engagement ring and the misguided assumption is that she will cook for you and make love to you for the rest of your life. Sadly, I am not in a position to shower Sara with diamonds, or even zircons, and I am probably doomed to eat M&S cottage pies until I check myself into a nursing home.
These days, what with my art addiction and the heavies the gas company have sent round, Sara is not collecting but losing jewellery. She says that whenever I give her something she is never sure how long she'll have it. I told her I thought that must be quite exciting but she just looked down at the floor. At the moment an Andrew Grima ring I gave Sara is being 'looked after' by the nice man at Bond Street Pawnbrokers (www.newbondstreetpawnbrokers.com, 020 7493 0385). We are telling people it's being `resized'.
With Christmas rearing its gaudy and politically incorrect head I may be emotionally blackmailed into making a purchase. Bond Street has a higher concentration of top jewellers than almost any other street in the world. Its shatterproof winf. dows groan with diamonds on a scale that intimidates even wealthy men. Graff were the I first to produce pornographic jewellery. Yellow diamonds the size of eyeballs stare out of their shop fronts seducing tourists and Trying it on: Oscar Humphries can't resist rocks Russian oligarchs alike. Leviev upped the ante with even bigger stones.
Then Harry Winston injected an American spin on the 'bigger is better' school of retail. Bond Street newcomer Moussaieff, whose rocks are truly staggering in size, used to trade exclusively from the Park Lane Hilton — a hotel popular with Saudis and confused Americans who've obviously annoyed their travel agents. To me, Mayfair is a fantasy playground where the rings on offer bear little resemblance to those one could — even temporarily — own. Any young man walking down Bond Street will have 'diamond envy' — the bijou equivalent of showering with a basketball team. All men feel the need to measure up, and in Bond Street the message is as clear as a D-colour flawless. Size matters.
Where does this leave those of us who are fiscally challenged? Mercifully, some jewellers emphasise design over sheer scale, and it's still possible to shop without fear of asset-strippers gatecrashing your Christmas party. Ritz Fine Jewellery is at the high end of this market. The Ritz brand is a desirable one.
Staying at the Ritz in Paris was one of the great treats of my late adolescence and, to be honest, one of the few things I remember. My room was amazing and the waiter didn't bat an eyelid when my friend and I ordered a tray of vodka tonics — I find that the quality of a hotel is reflected in how polite they are to alcoholics. I stole all the soap and the stationery from the room.
You can't wear a hotel but in each of the pieces by Ritz Fine Jewellery there exists some of the allure that so captivated Coco Chanel, E Scott Fitzgerald and an inebriated Oscar Humphries.
Pretending to shop there is a blissful experience. I was offered coffee — which I declined in ?, case they rumbled me as a fantasist and I needed to flee quickly.
I saw a diamond pendant with a turquoise drop for £1,700 that could — with a bit of juggling — make Sara very happy this Christmas. Theo Fennell has skull trinkets from £750 that I'm mad about and Cartier sell gold charms for £255 that can be added, or subtracted, from a bracelet.
My problem is that I see something beautiful and want it. I then justify my extravagance by buying it for Sara. She never knew she wanted a pair of 1950s ceramic greyhounds, but I knew straightaway we had to have them. I let her name them. What she'd really like this Christmas is the ring back, but as I learnt the hard way, Christmas is a time of shouting and disappointment. I have yet to learn that Sara doesn't want to hear 'I saw this and thought of me'. She may not believe in Father Christmas any more, but mystifyingly she still thinks diamonds are forever. I hope she feels the same way about skulls.
GRAFF DIAMONDS www.graffdiamonds.com HARRY WINSTON www.harrywinston.com RITZ FINE JEWELLERY www.ritzfinejewellery.com THEO FENNELL www.theofennell.com CARTIER www.cartier.com
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