According to the GlobeNewswire release, Brilliant Earth and House of Taylor, the company that licenses the late Elizabeth Taylor's name and likeness, announced a 17-piece lab-grown jewelry collection on Sept. 24, ranging from $995 huggie earrings to a $15,000 tennis necklace. The collection goes on sale online today, with a free pair of lab diamond studs on orders over $1,000 through Sept. 26.
The mechanism is estate licensing, and the estate is doing just fine. Taylor died in 2011. Her actual jewels sold at Christie's for $137 million, the most expensive celebrity collection auction ever. Now a company whose entire job is selling the rights to her face has signed an exclusive with a lab-grown diamond brand. She cannot object. That is the business model.
The detail that seals it is that every stone is lab-grown. The woman who built the most famous real-diamond collection in Hollywood history, who collected the Blue Moon and wore stones that had their own tabloid run, is now the name on stones that never left a factory. The estate co-trustee told The Hollywood Reporter that Brilliant Earth's "commitment to ethically sourced gems reflects the same care Elizabeth brought to everything she loved." The same care. The care was 200 diamonds. The care is now "lab-grown."
There is even a promo. Spend $1,000 before Sept. 26 and get free studs. A woman who has been dead for fifteen years is running a flash sale. The collection comes in three motifs: Gilded Glamour, True Blue, Bold Blooms. She approved none of it. The signature on the contract is a corporate seal.
YOUR TURN: is a posthumous brand deal a legacy, or a life insurance policy with better lighting?
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