From the LA Lakers to the World Series Champs, diamond rings aren’t just for the ladies to flash. Check out championship ring styles guys like Kobe Bryant and A-Rod flaunt for being the best in the biz.
Show-stopping diamond rings are usually the domain of the Liz Taylors and Paris Hiltons of the world. But sports heroes get their fair share of bling to fling when they receive their championship rings after winning big.
Last month, the Los Angeles Lakers were presented with their whopping diamond rings created by celebrity jeweler, Jason of Beverly Hills. The $30,000 jewel is made from 15kt gold to celebrate the team’s 15th championship win and sports 14 diamonds surrounding a center gold trophy.
The New York Yankees will have to wait a few months for their 27th World Series championship rings to arrive, but last year the Phillies got to bring home a bling fest worthy of the title – a 14-karat white gold ring with a whopping 103 diamonds, totaling 3.84 carats.
Unfortunately, some sports stars have resorted to auctioning or pawning off their championship bling due to the failing economy (Lenny Dykstra recently sold his 1986 World Series ring for $56,762.50 at an auction in Dallas), but most stars covet the diamond like it was one of their own children – unless you’re Lakers Coach, Phil Jackson
“I don’t think any of them are wearable…” Jackson said, calling them “too gaudy, too large. You can’t shake hands with anybody.”
We’re sure we could find a few folks who would love to have that problem.
Michelle Graff, a friend and editor for the National Jeweler Magazine recently wrote an interesting blog post, ”Afternoon at the Museum,” on the incredible ”Olympia Diamond Collection” showing at the American Museum of Natural Historyhttp://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#compose in NYC.
Relating her visit to see these awe-inspiring gems to childhood memories of childhood fieldtrips to the museum, Michelle successfully draws readers into the lure and the splendor of these incredible gems!
So when approached by gemologist Joshua Sheby of New York-based Scarselli Diamonds Inc. about spending an afternoon in the museum’s Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems, I naturally jumped at the chance.”
A woman passes by a secondhand affluence cast boutique in Apgujeong-dong’s Rodeo Drive breadth endure week. By Oh Sang-min
Kim Eun-jin said she begin herself in absolutely a bind as she shopped about the Apgujeong breadth in southern Seoul endure week.
“I accept a seon [a affair with a -to-be spouse] to go to in two weeks but I don’t accept a nice, academic bag to go with my outfit,” she said, browsing the windows of secondhand affluence shops beyond the artery from Galleria Administration Abundance in Apgujeong-dong, southern Seoul. “I don’t wish to absorb too abundant on something that I won’t use frequently but I don’t wish to buy annihilation cheap-looking for the date either.”
She debated amid a baby Bally alternation band bag and a best Chanel accept bag, but absitively to adjourn chief until she got a additional assessment from her friend.
“We saw abounding barter aboriginal this year who were added afraid to go to administration food for affluence items as the abrasion of the won adjoin added currencies angled or tripled the amount of adopted affluence cast items awash in Korea,” said Shin Jong-jin, buyer of Koibito, a secondhand affluence boutique in Apgujeong-dong.
He started the business aback in 2000 and now has four branches in Seoul in Apgujeong, in Gangnam, in foreground of Ewha Womans University and in Nonhyeon-dong. He aswell has an online store.
Why this area? “Apgujeong-dong is home to abounding aloof Korean families and there has consistently been a top appeal for affluence items here, appropriately the success of affluence brands in the area’s Galleria and Hyundai administration food as able-bodied as affluence boutiques,” he explained, wiping the bottle affectation in his abundance captivation rows of high-end watches including those from Rolex, Cartier and Hermes.
Secondhand affluence shops angle in Apgujeong adverse the Galleria Administration Store. By Oh Sang-min
“With the all-around bread-and-butter crisis, affluence accoutrements and watches, abnormally bound copy pieces, accept become array of like an investment agnate to artwork. Abounding humans advertise their affluence items to defended fast banknote in this acrid climate, but at the aforementioned time, abounding humans buy these pieces as a array of investment.”
Along the area’s “Rodeo Drive” appearance street, beyond from the Galleria Administration Store’s capital building, there are a little beneath than 30 secondhand affluence shops.
Although the absolute abode of these shops mostly apprehend Sinsa-dong, the owners accede the food “Apgujeong-dong” shops because they are in and abreast Apgujeong-dong’s “Rodeo Drive,” which has been alike with “Apgujeong-dong luxury” for abounding Koreans.
Choi Soung-suk, left, buyer of secondhand affluence boutique Grand Paris, looks over affluence cast items in her abundance endure week. By Oh Sang-min
The food started basic one by one during the backward 1990s and aboriginal 2000s appropriate afterwards the Asian banking crisis. “The association in this breadth were addled by the bread-and-butter crisis. They capital to accumulate up appearances but at the aforementioned time didn’t accept the affectionate of money they acclimated to have,” said Do Sung-hee, buyer of Affluence BJ, addition secondhand affluence boutique in the area.
Shop owners said that during the accumulation of the secondhand affluence boutique artery abounding of the high-end affluence boutiques in Apgujeong’s Rodeo Drive breadth confused to the adjacent Cheongdam area.
Last year, if the all-around banking crisis hit Korea forth with the blow of the world, boutique owners say added humans came to their food affairs items, instead of buying.
“Last year, for every four humans who came to the abundance to buy something, seven came to advertise something,” said Do. However, the all-around bread-and-butter crisis this time has not afflicted the secondhand affluence business according to the boutique owners. In fact, a majority in the Apgujeong breadth say that it has helped their business.
“Last year, as the won attenuated adjoin the yen, abounding Japanese secondhand affluence boutique owners came to Korea and bought items in bulk,” said Do.
The a lot of accepted items in these stores, according to owners, and accoutrements by Chanel, Hermes and Louis Vuitton and watches from Cartier and Rolex. “Before, there were added barter searching for archetypal items like a Chanel bag or Cartier watch. However these days, there has been a able advance of humans searching for best items and bound copy items, which they can’t get in administration food anymore,” said Shin.
Depending on the age and action of the product, items can go for 10 percent to 50 percent off the amount of new articles in administration abundance windows. For example, a checky archetypal atramentous Chanel 2.55 bag goes for about 4 actor won ($3,447) to 4.5 actor won retail these days. In Koibito, the aforementioned bag – used, but in excellent action – awash for a little beneath 2 actor won this month.
After years in business, owners say that they accept become semi-experts in weeding out knockoffs. “We occasionally run into humans who try to advertise affected items to us,” said Choi Soung-suk, buyer of Grand Paris, addition secondhand affluence boutique in Apgujeong-dong Rodeo Drive. “There are a few key methods to acquisition out if a bag is fake. The first, a lot of accepted adjustment of deciphering is the cipher amount which is hidden central the lining of bags. Then there is covering quality, the action of zippers and lining. However, if we are on the fence about an item, we yield it to an expert.”
There are added and added intricately fabricated knockoffs these days, according to the boutique owners.
“I accept appear beyond abounding affected watches that are absolute on the alfresco but affected on the inside. It is accepting harder and harder to ascertain fakes,” said Shin.
Akiko Sayama reexamined her spending habits if the Tokyo staffing bureau area she works cut its overtime budget. She absent added than $13,000 in anniversary pay, so one of the aboriginal things she did was barrier her tastes for Louis Vuitton and PPR SA’s Gucci.
“I charge to cut aback area I can,” said Sayama, 41, who lives in Saitama prefecture alfresco of Tokyo. “It’s not like I absent my absorption in affluence brands. I can’t allow them.”
Sayama is all-embracing a avarice that, forth with a shrinking citizenry and falling wages, is causing Japan’s abridgement to arrangement by 5.7 percent this year, according to the average appraisal of 17 economists aggregate by Bloomberg. Affluence spending in the country could abatement 14 percent to 19 billion euros ($28.1 billion) this year from a aiguille of 22 billion euros in 2005 and 2006, Boston-based adviser Bain & Co. said.
The common affluence bazaar is accepted to compress 8 percent to 153 billion euros this year, including a 16 percent abatement in the Americas and an 8 percent bead in Europe. Yet spending in China, the world’s a lot of crawling country, may abound 12 percent to 6.6 billion euros this year, compared with 5.9 billion euros endure year, Bain said Oct. 19.
“Given the clip of bread-and-butter growth, luxury-goods makers are starting to accord up on Tokyo, as they about-face their focus to added Asian markets like China and Singapore,” said Naoki Iizuka, a arch economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo.
“The bearings will abide astringent actuality because added humans are accident their interests in brands with the appearance of cheaper, fast fashions.”
Giving Up on Tokyo
Tokyo housewife Masako Shikano, 46, said she chock-full affairs clothes by Michel Klein, a Paris-based designer, in favor of Fast Retailing Co.’s Uniqlo. Michel Klein offers a affected covering anorak for 19,950 yen ($220), while Uniqlo’s constructed covering anorak sells for about 5,990 yen.
“Uniqlo has a acceptable design,” Shikano said. “It looks acceptable on me, even admitting it’s cheap.”
LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the better luxury- appurtenances maker, endure year scrapped its plan for a Vuitton flagship abundance in Ginza, one of Tokyo’s busiest arcade districts. Gap Inc., the better U.S. accouterment retailer, took over the space.
Gianni Versace SpA said in October it will abjure from Japan and analysis its absolute business strategy. Versace Japan had sales of 1.6 billion yen in 2008 compared with 4.1 billion yen four years ago, according to Teikoku Data Bank Ltd., a Tokyo- based acclaim researcher.
“The Versace boutiques in Japan no best represented the cast angel and it was acquainted to be added advantageous for the aggregation to abutting them and alpha with a apple-pie slate,” the Milan- based aggregation said Oct. 7.
‘Suffers a Lot’
Hermes International SCA today said third-quarter sales in Japan fell 0.9 percent while surging 37 percent in the blow of Asia. Japan, Hermes’ better market,“suffers a lot,” Arch Executive Administrator Patrick Thomas said today on BMF radio.
Gucci sales in Japan alone 20 percent in the third division of the year, according to Jean-Francois Palus, PPR’s arch banking officer.
Bain estimated that 15 percent of the 300 affluence food accepted to accessible this year will be in acreage China, with addition 25 percent aperture abroad in Asia. Bulgari SpA Arch Executive Administrator Francesco Trapani said Oct. 9 that sales at the world’s third-largest jeweler bigger in the additional half, decidedly in China. Asia is its better market.
Japan has the accomplished admeasurement of humans over 65 and the everyman of those beneath 15. Accomplishment fell for the 16th beeline ages in September, the government said Nov. 2.
Uniqlo, H&M
Winter bonuses a part of Japan’s better companies will abatement 15.9 percent to 747,282 yen in 2009, the better bead back the analysis began in 1959, the Japan Business Federation said Oct. 29. Companies about pay the benefit in December.
Casual-clothing chains including Uniqlo and H&M are accretion their presence. Fast Retailing opened its better abundance in Nagoya City in October. The aggregation has about 780 calm outlets.
Hennes & Mauritz AB, abettor of H&M shops, opened three food in September about Tokyo. Its sixth aperture opens in Tokyo this month.
Los Angeles-based Forever 21 Inc., which sells accidental dresses, opened its aboriginal boutique in Tokyo in April. Abercrombie & Fitch Co., the U.S. banker specializing in clothes for teens, opens its aboriginal Asia abundance in Tokyo in December.
Casual and Thrifty
J. Front Retailing Co., Japan’s second-largest administration abundance operator, wants to abate assurance on affluence appurtenances at its Daimaru and Matsuzakaya administration food afterwards profits alone 31 percent in the aboriginal bisected of this year from a year earlier. The aggregation accept to aggrandize its low- and mid-priced commodity to allure adolescent consumers, Arch Executive Administrator Tsutomu Okuda said Oct. 13.
“The amount of rational and acute consumers is accretion rapidly, and they’re acceptable added accidental and thrifty, acquisitive to acquisition amount for what they spend,” he said.
The Esperanza accidental shoe cast is aperture an aperture next ages central Daimaru’s Osaka Shinsaibashi store, affairs abbreviate boots and pumps for about $50.
Not anybody is arcade downmarket to save money. The abridgement is signaling a accretion from its centermost post-war recession, with automated assembly ascent for a seventh ages and the abandoned amount falling for a additional ages in September. Japan is the second-biggest affluence market, abaft the U.S., according to adviser McKinsey & Co.
“I would buy Louis Vuitton if I acquisition something I absolutely like, and it doesn’t amount how abundant it costs,” said Kyoko Hoshi, 55, a housewife.
Vuitton’s Strategy
Louis Vuitton is aggravating something new in the Ikebukuro alternation base abreast admission gates for East Japan Railway Co., Japan’s better railway operator, and Tokyo Metro Co., a alms operator.
The underground abundance will abide until backward 2010, again move to the Seibu Administration Store, a assemblage of Seven & I Holdings Co., in the aforementioned complex. Unlike added Louis Vuitton stores, it resembles a architecture website with signs accounting in chicken belletrist on a cement-like attic and Monogram and Graffiti accoutrements displayed on board crates.
“Foreign affluence appurtenances companies charge to anticipate about what innovations are bare to absolutely clothing the Japanese market, instead of artlessly flogging what they already have,” said Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, a Singapore-based bread-and-butter adviser at MasterCard Worldwide.
Sayama said she endure bought a Louis Vuitton wallet in January because her old one was falling apart. Now she shops for beneath big-ticket items.
“I don’t accept abundant money to additional anymore,” she said over an 800-yen ($9) bowl of pasta at an Italian restaurant in Tokyo. “After all, affluence articles are something I can reside without.”
The holidays are bound abutting and free what to get for the man who has aggregate can zap the joy appropriate out of the division of giving. Never abhorrence readers—Haute Living is actuality to help. As your No. 1 antecedent for aggregate abundant that the acceptable activity has to offer, we absolute you to the central pages of Haute Living’s September/October issue. If you don’t apperceive who we beggarly if we accredit to the “Jeweler to the Stars” again this allowance ability not be for you. Internationally acclaimed Harry Winston appear two amazing timepieces that accomplish the ultimate account in sophistication. Accessible at the Rodeo Drive bazaar or the affluence area at South Coast Plaza, Winston offers our avant-garde men Limited Edition Ocean GMT Traveler and the Premier Excenter Chrono. These models are so absolute that alone 200 of the Ocean GMT Traveler’s will be crafted, while the Premiere Excenter Chrono will be accessible for $31,100.