Remember the sixties? Peace, love and scarab beetle pendants. Maybe not, but if you missed out then, you have a second chance now. And if you do remember, this wonderful sterling silver scarab beetle pendant is a lovely bit of nostalgia.

If the search for that dazzling Prince Charming has been more than disappointing, and your Fairy Godmother has yet to wave her magic wand, you can finally stop waiting in anticipation. Today, more than ever, women are buying their own diamonds in the form of the right hand ring.

As Barbie is a busy supermodel on the go in a long running, on again, off again relationship, her days are varied from active to very formal. When she was first introduced fifty years ago today, she was wearing the famous black and white bathing suit. She often paired that bathing suit with simple hoop earrings.

It all started in the 1930s when Coco Chanel, the French designer of “all things glamorous” stated that “Elegance is Refusal”. Her fine jewelry offered the first glimpse of haute couture for women, the vibrantly feminine woman who considered herself ‘powerful while ladylike’. Her fashion jewelry designs were the first ventures into “high-low” fashion whereby exquisite jewels were combined with other stones to add interest and to bring the price point for one or two pieces of fine jewelry out of the “royalty only” range. In many ways, she set a bar that continues to stand. Coco Chanel’s most famous fine jewelry included elegant pins and bracelets.

Because of its extraordinary hardness, its alleged resistance to fire and ability to “withstand hammer and anvil”, by the fifteenth century, the diamond had come to be acknowledged as a symbol of fidelity. No sixteenth-century royal marriage was complete without a diamond ring. In 1518, even 2-year-old Princess Mary (daughter of Henry VIII) had a tiny diamond ring placed on her finger when she was married, by proxy, to her bridegroom, the baby Dauphin of France.

The company found a six story building at 653 Fifth Avenue which was owned by banker Morton F. Plant. Cartier proposed a trade, their most valuable strand of pearls, which at the time were valued at $1,000,000 for the building. Mrs. Plant gladly accepted the deal. 653 Fifth Avenue is still the current address of Cartier New York.