Some of our favourite things (November edition)

Here are some of our favourite things in the month of November.

KAMPALA FASHION WEEK 2014

This past saturday was the day of the most anticipated event in the Kampala fashion calendar.
It was the maiden kampala fashion week and I am so proud to be one of the lucky designers that got to showcase.

Bijoux HQ collaborated with celebrated Ugandan designer :Eguana Kampala for his SS 15 collection which was inspired by Jazz through the ages.
With his artistic but wearable collections

TRICK OR TREAT -HALLOWEEN JEWELLERY

From skulls to serpents, we pick out frightfully fine ghoulish jewels to wear this Halloween.

courtesy Telegraph.com

courtesy telegraph.com

courtesy okajewelry.com

courtesy ebay.com

courtesy etsy.com

courtesy okajewelry.com

courtesy ebay.com

so what do you think? too creepy or fun? 

World’s ‘next great pink diamond’ to go on sale

According to the Telegraph, an extremely rare 8.41-carat internally flawless, fancy vivid pink diamond is estimated to sell for £8–9.5 million when it is auctioned by Sotheby’s Hong Kong next week.

courtesy the telegraph.com

Just 0.1 per cent of the 20 million carats of rough diamonds produced annually are pink, and, of these, the number weighing more than half a carat would fit into the palm of your hand. No wonder then that many of history’s most prized gems – from the Williamson presented to Queen Elizabeth II at her wedding, the Hortense from the Crown Jewels of France, the Darya-i-Nur from the Iranian Crown Jewels and Babur’s Agra – are pink diamonds.

Hewn from a 19.54-carat rough pink diamond that was mined in 2010 by De Beers, in addition to its size the pear-shaped diamond owes its incredible rarity to its internally flawless clarity and fancy vivid purple-pink colour.

Pink diamonds are the result of an imperfection in the stone’s atomic structure, leading to pink grain lines. The more of these grain lines form, the more intense the stone’s pink colour. So the very formation of a pink diamond leads to less than desirable clarity, with almost all stones showing surface graining or having a hazy overall appearance due to internal graining.

courtesy the telegraph.com

A stone of this size that possesses not only a vibrant pink-purple colour  but also internally flawless clarity, is virtually unseen in any other pink diamond sold at auction. In the words of Sotheby’s, it is “a treasure of nature…[and] ranks amongst the rarest and most desirable of coloured diamonds ever seen at auction”.

Goodbye Oscar!

In my young journey as a jewellery designer I have been influenced by a number of designers, some notable and some others, not so commercially successful(but successful nonetheless). 

One of my popular design inspirations was the great Czar of fashion: Señor De La Renta. 

Oscar de la Renta, died Monday night at age 82 after a long battle with cancer.

image courtesy of Tomandlorenzo.com

image courtesy of Tomandlorenzo.com

His Latin-lover good looks, fascination with feminine style, strong color sense and impeccable social skills — a wonderful sense of humour among them — made him a court dressmaker to a large portion of the international set and a designer for First Ladies from the time of Betty Ford. 

He was a particular favorite of three of the last: Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush — and Michelle Obama recently donned one of his dresses at the White House event for Fashion students. 

image courtesy of Tomandlorenzo.com

While de la Renta could design clothes that were editorial darlings, his genius was in making women, regardless of their own intrinsic pulchritude, look and feel beautiful. Romantic, glamorous styles were his signature: tastefully extravagant, Paris-influenced, with an undercurrent of Latin pizazz. 

He was best-known for his designs for the Ladies Who Lunch, the likes of Babe Paley, C.Z. Guest and Marella Agnelli, along with a glittering constellation of other aristocrats and socialites, performers, broadcasters and top executives, who often became, not just customers, but friends. 

RIP to a true fashion icon!