wombat1138 | The bridal-industrial complex (Reply)

This article is more than two decades old, but I still enjoy re-reading it every year or so. When it was first written, cubic zirconia has only appeared on the jewelry market a few years earlier, having been launched by the Swarovski company. Swarovski is best known for lead-crystal beads and tchotchkes in the US, but has a more upmarket reputation in Europe for fine costume jewelry. (I'll spare everyone my extended back-and-forth about whether "fine costume jewelry" is a contradiction in terms-- it may be well-made and pretty, but the materials have no particular intrinsic value... but then again, how much true intrinsic value does anything really have if it can't directly keep you sheltered, fed, and watered? Though if you can persuade someone to trade you a cow for your useless lump of soft yellow metal....) Since then, I expect their patents have run out, so that now everyone and his dog can use Swarovski's industrial process to churn out CZ. Also, synthetic diamonds can now be made in significant sizes and quantities.

All of which boils down to no particular point on my part, except that on this reading, I particularly enjoyed the observation on "eternity rings" that "older American women received a ring of miniature diamonds because of the needs of a South African corporation to accommodate the Soviet Union."

Ah, love.