Editor’s Note
This article explores the fascinating intersection of cinema and luxury, revealing the estimated real-world value of iconic—and sometimes entirely fictional—pieces of screen jewelry. The valuations, based on a jeweler’s detailed analysis, offer a unique lens on Hollywood’s glittering fantasy.
Hollywood is in the business of selling dreams, and as a fascinating new list reveals, that includes the fantastic diamond jewelry we see on screen. According to a recent article, the UK-based Hatton Garden jeweler Queensmith was commissioned to list the most expensive pieces of jewelry—both fictional and real—from movies and TV series. The list uses “precise assumptions for fictional pieces by valuing each element and converting it to real-world amounts.”
Here are the top five most expensive pieces from the movies:
Designed by jewelers Asprey & Garrard, the Heart of the Ocean is a fictional jewel which, in *Titanic*, allegedly came from Louis XVI’s crown. While the studio fashioned the prop for about $9,400, the 56-carat heart-shaped blue diamond in white gold and a colorless diamond frame would have been worth more than $500 million had it been real. The piece was inspired by the one-of-a-kind blue Hope Diamond, a stunning 45.52-carat gem and the largest blue diamond in the world, currently kept at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. At the end of the film, it is tossed into the ocean by Rose.
*Ocean’s 8* gives a feminist touch to the traditionally male-cast *Ocean’s 11* franchise. Cartier, chosen as the film’s exclusive jewelry partner, was asked to create a specific replica for the film’s ultimate heist—the “Jeanne Toussaint” necklace, a tribute to Cartier’s Creative Director in the 1930s.
In the film, the Toussaint is made of flawless, colorless diamonds. To create an identical effect on screen, the colored diamonds were replaced with zirconium oxides, a natural material, mounted on white gold. Special attention was paid to the finishing of the settings and polishing, “as close-ups would not allow for any imprecisions.” The original necklace was designed by Jacques Cartier in 1931 for the Maharaja of Nawanagar and was initially created for a man. It was specifically modified for Anne Hathaway’s measurements, reducing it by 15-20% from the original design using dis-mountable bezels.
Gal Gadot’s character, socialite Linnet Ridgeway Doyle, wears a replica of the Tiffany Diamond—one of the largest colored (or “Fancy”) diamonds ever made. It is a 128.54-carat gem polished into an 82-facet cushion shape, worked on for a year from a 287-carat rough unearthed in South Africa in 1877. The true Tiffany Diamond has been worn in public only three times since its discovery, most recently by Lady Gaga at the 2019 Academy Awards.
The 2003 blockbuster starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey features the fictional company DeLauer Diamonds. In the famous “Frost Yourself” gala scene, Hudson’s character, Andie Anderson, wears the stunning Isadora yellow diamond necklace, boasting an impressive 84-carat yellow diamond pendant called “Isadora” (after Isadora Duncan in the movie). The necklace, designed by Harry Winston, was complemented by a pair of 5-carat radiant cut yellow diamond stud earrings worth about $125,000.
The Moon of Baroda is a 24.04-carat pear-shaped, Fancy Yellow diamond worn by Marilyn Monroe when she sang “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” while promoting the 1953 classic film *Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*.
The unique diamond was mined in the legendary Golconda mines in India—the source for the Koh-i-Noor and the Grand Mazarin stones—estimated between the 15th and 17th centuries. It may have been part of the collection of the Gaekwads of Baroda. In November 2018, it sold for $1.3 million at a Christie’s Hong Kong auction, almost doubling its highest pre-sale estimate.
