Forever Diamonds

Eva Longoria & Tony Parker’s Piaget Wedding Bands

2008-01-30T11:37:00.000-08:00

Just a couple days ago on 07/07/07, Desperate Housewives’ star Eva Longoria married Tony Parker, the championship NBA basketball player from the San Antonio Spurs. With two high-profile stars getting hitched at a star-studded wedding event, you just knew that they were not going to skimp on their wedding bands. The two stars sealed their love and marriage with these two beautiful and unique Piaget wedding bands.

The rings are each made of two bands that are “inseperably linked, turning together for eternity.” Now isn’t that quite the romantic touch? Eva’s ring features double rows of brilliant cut diamonds, which are divided by a row of 27 square cut diamonds down the center. That makes for a total of 107 individual diamonds on this super sparkler! Eva’s band itself is made of 18k white gold, like Tony’s, which is a much simpler ring. Both of the rings also have a personalized French engraving on the inside, which was added at the couple’s request.

Eva also choose to give her husband a true one-of-a-kind timepiece as a wedding gift. The watch Eva had crafted is a customized version of the Piaget Polo watch featuring a the number 9 filled with 50 beautiful diamonds (Tony’s jersey number), a 43mm white gold case, and a slate grey 18K gold and titanium bezel and matching slate grey dial. Wow, what a gift!

Blue Diamond

2008-01-18T12:12:00.000-08:00

THE Blue Diamond Stakes picture is becoming clearer.

Chilean Miss leap-frogged to the fifth line of Blue Diamond betting with an ultra-impressive debut win at Mornington yesterday.

And at Flemington today, the Diamond is expected to take further shape, with two impressive recent trial winners to feature in the St John Ambulance 125 Sprint (1000m).

The Clinton McDonald-trained filly Chilean Miss, who bolted in by six lengths at Mornington after sharing the lead to the home turn, had been heavily backed to win the Blue Diamond before yesterday's win.

The filly, who was only registered with a name on Monday, was posted at $101 last week but is now $10.

TAB Sportsbet stands to lose more than $80,000 if she wins the 1200m Blue Diamond, the state's premier juvenile race, at Caulfield on February 23.

McDonald said Chilean Miss was good enough to win the Diamond, but added: "Getting there might be the battle.

"She's a little bit shinny (shin sore).

"If she gets to the Diamond, well and good, but we won't be pressuring her if she's not ready. A better alternative might be to bypass the Diamond and head for the Adelaide Magic Millions in March, which would obviously give us more time for her to recover. But she's a lovely filly.

"We've known she's been good for some time."

First-starters Beynac and Mount Everest have been specked to win the Diamond. They will firm further if they can translate trial form to race form at Flemington today.

Both youngsters won trials with impressive performances at Cranbourne on Tuesday.

Beynac's trainer Pat Hyland said he was wary of becoming too excited about an easy trial win.

"Put it his way, he's no Vain," Hyland said. "He trialled OK, he jumped to the lead and won well. But I don't know how much to read into those Cranbourne trials. I'd rather see him do it at the races before I get excited. Put it this way, I'll be a lot more keen on him come spring."

Beynac is $26 for the Blue Diamond, while the Lee Freedman-trained Mount Everest is $31.

Katie Holmes' Engagement Ring

2008-01-11T10:49:00.000-08:00

Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise Ring

Hollywood is famous for its celebrity romances and there was plenty of publicity for Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise. Their relationship was subject to extensive scrutiny by the press who suspected it was more of a publicity stunt than real love. Both stars had big summer films (Tom's "War of the Worlds" and Katie's "Batman Begins") coming out at the time of their romance so almost everyone thought their frequent public appearances were an orchestrated publicity strategy.

Both Cruise and Holmes had recently ended relationships. Mission Impossible and Top Gun star Cruise had ended a three year relationship with actress Penelope Cruz, who he met on the set of Vanilla Sky. He was married to Australian actress Kidman for more than 10 years. Holmes recently called off her engagement with American Pie actor Chris Kleint after five years together.

The relationship between Tom and Katie even has its own nickname, "TomKat" which is a play on their names and the plane Tom flew in Top Gun. People started thinking something might be different when Tom declared his love for the "Dawson's Creek" star on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" by jumping euphorically on her sofa. The 42-year-old performed the same antics on a subsequent edition of the Jay Leno show.

After only dating a little over two months, the Tom Cruise proposed June 17, 2005 at the Eiffel Tower and presented Katie Holmes a Fred Leighton designed oval shaped diamond valued at about $275,000. The Edwardian-style ring features a 5.5 carat oval diamond with over six carats of smaller diamonds outlining the oval and on the split shank mounting. Tom asked Katie to marry him at the end of a candlelight dinner at Le Jules Verne restaurant on the second floor of the Eiffel Towner. Asked why he chose the famed Paris landmark, he replied: "I've never been to the Eiffel Tower. It's Paris, it's a beautiful city, and it's very romantic."

Tom Cruise has reportedly bought his pregnant fiancée Katie Holmes her own $20 million jet as a wedding present. An insider says, "Tom wanted to come up with the most amazing wedding gift ever, something that would make her life so much better than a big diamond on her finger."

Though many have speculated that Cruise and fiancée Katie Holmes would wed prior to their baby's birth, the actor says the couple has decided to wait until after the child is born. The couple is reportedly planning a wedding for October 21, 2006 but it seems that everything in this relationship comes as a surprise so we will all have to wait and see.

Black Diamond

2008-01-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

Black Orlov Diamond reportedly to be worn by nominee Huffman during Academy Awards

The curse of the Black Orlov Diamond may be put to rest forever if “Desperate Housewives” star and Best Actress nominee Felicity Huffman wins an Oscar at the Academy Awards.

The Black Orloff diamond was discovered in India in the early 1800s. It originally weighed 195 carats. It was allegedly cursed - as were all its future owners - when a monk removed the gem from the eye of the idol of Brahma at a shrine near Pondicherry, India.

At least three former owners have apparently killed themselves. In 1932, J W Paris, the diamond dealer who imported the stone to the United States, jumped to his death from one of New York's tallest buildings shortly after concluding the sale of the jewel. And 15 years later, a pair of Russian princesses, Nadia Vyegin-Orlov and Leonila Galitsine-Bariatinsky, leapt to their deaths within a month of each other.

In an attempt to escape the curse, the diamond was re-cut into three separate stones, which have since been in the possession of a succession of private owners.

The 67.5 carat stone known today as the Black Orlov is set in a 108-diamond brooch suspended from a 124-diamond necklace. When the diamonds exhibition closes in February, the necklace will travel to California where a star, whom Petimezas refused to name, will wear it to the 2006 Oscars ceremony.

Black diamonds are very rare and get their colour from the presence of tiny mineral traces, mainly the iron-oxide minerals magnetite and haematite. Only one in 10,000 diamonds mined is coloured.

This diamond is currently owned by Dennis Petimezas, a diamond dealer from Pennsylvania, who bought it for an unspecified sum last year.