If we know one thing for sure, it was that the late, great Elizabeth Taylor loved collecting lavish jewelry as much as she loved racking up romantic entanglements (she had eight husbands in total). In her last interview before her untimely passing, she told Kim Kardashian (for Harper’s Bazaar) that she “never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands,” but she still managed to accumulate a world-renowned bounty of bling. We take a look back at her famous desire for diamonds.
Oversized sparkle
Taylor not only owned a large collection of jewels, the ones she owned were oversized and opulent. Thanks to Richard Burton, whom she married twice (in 1965 and again in 1975) Taylor was the proud owner of not one, but two iconic stones.
He gifted her with the Krupp diamond, clocking in at 33.19 carats and the pear-shaped Taylor-Burton diamond — a whopping 69.42 carats, which she had set into a necklace.
In the aforementioned interview with Harper’s Bazaar Taylor said of her mind-boggling bling that size does matter, “but so does the size of the emotion behind it.”
Excess and extravagance
One doesn’t become the goddess of all things glitz and glamour without just cause, and Taylor took accessorizing to a whole new level with her unabashed extravagance. She said in 2009 that “enough is never enough,” and that attitude is what shaped her fashion and jewelery choices throughout her storied career.
Whether she was sporting a pair of eye-popping drop earrings, a tiara worthy of a royal wedding or a diamond-crusted piece from her vast collection, Taylor knew how to turn heads with accessories.
Liz’s Lifelong passion for bling
Today it seems as if every celebrity and reality TV star has their own fragrance, but Taylor was one of the first with her iconic (and aptly named) scent, White Diamonds. Still going strong even now, the feminine and floral fragrance will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. Along with a perfume named after one of her favorite things, Taylor wrote a book on the subject of her lifelong love of jewels called, “My Love Affair with Jewelery” and started the jewelery company, House of Taylor.
Onscreen or off, Taylor was a style icon with an eye for luxury and over-the-top accessories that may never be recreated. There’s bling, and then there’s Elizabeth Taylor’s version of bling – big, bold and unforgettable.
More Elizabeth Taylor style
- Elizabeth Taylor: Hollywood style icon >>
- Look back at Elizabeth Taylor’s fashion over the years >>
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