Legendary Tiffany's

(with Alice Williams)

Legendary Tiffany's means the very famous Tiffany's that everyone has heard of.

I want to know why everybody makes such a big fuss about it, its so pricey, expensive I mean. I just like getting the books, they're free!

In the book it says,

Charles Lewis Tiffany opened his first store on Broadway in 1837. The film with Audrey Hepburn was one of the reasons the store is so well known. He was originally famous for all the jewels and diamonds he bought from Europe to America, including the jewels collected by Empress Eugenie wife of Napoleon III. Napoleon married her because he loved and respected her, but he got distracted by having affairs. She got sad from having a miscarriage, and only had one son. Childbirth was a lot more difficult at that time she was in labour for two days, so she didn't have any daughters.

So back to the jewels.

Emma: What does it mean diamonds are a girl's best friend?

Alice: Well actually a friend of mine told me about this too, but I can see you've been talking about it with Anna, so lets just leave it for the poem.

So back to the jewels again. Charles Tiffany and co. went all over the world finding gems in different places, that all the stars of Hollywood wore, Tiffany's had jewels you couldn't see anywhere else they were rare.

In my poem this week, I'm writing about tiffany's beautiful jewellery that will transform with the light and shadow like the gems that are one colour in the shade and one colour in the sun. Not too dark or violent but in the soft romantic shadows.

And one more thing, what's a private detective?

Of Tiffany's, Diamonds and A Girl's Best Friend

By Emma Brodie

With

Anna Maria Dell'oso

Emma: I went to Tiffany's in Sydney with my sister Rhiannon. She wanted to fix something, a piece of jewellery, she bought it at Tiffany's. Tiffany's is a famous jewellery shop in New York, it was in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. The diamonds there at Tiffany's are very expensive, glamorous and rich. Can you tell me why - and can you tell me why they say "diamonds are a girl's best friend."

Anna: Well it's an old fashioned thing to say - and by 'girl' they mean a young woman, by the way, not a child. It means that a woman who is having a relationship with a rich person, she has to hang on to the expensive gifts she gets because when the love affair stops, she at least can sell the diamonds and have some cash to show for her time in the relationship. I think it comes from a song in a Marilyn Monroe movie, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It goes: 'Men grow cold, as girls grow old, we all lose our charms in the end ... But these rocks don't lose their shape - diamonds are a girl's best friend..' It comes from the days when when women were not able to work and to become wealthy from their own efforts, so they traded love, sex and affection for money and power from men - saying 'diamonds are a girl's best friend' is actually pretty cynical -

Emma: What's that word?

Anna: It's about when you don't have much power to do or be what you want to be or do, so you get to thinking a lot about money in a way that is quite bitter. Passive aggressive, you know that word?Emma: Yes, it know that. I would never want to be like that, or panicking about money.

Pause. A break. A cup of tea, a vegetable juice.

Emma: I love the tourmaline heart in my Tiffany's book.

Anna: It's called red rubellite from California. That means it's a precious gemstone from the United States, the USA.

Emma: I want to know about the colour of it. How they did they do the polish in that, about the beauty and passion and tender - what's tender? I don't know what it means.

Anna: But you've heard the word, right? Do you want to guess what it means?

Emma: I like it from Stephanie's poem. She used that word and I liked it, just a bit. Sometimes I don't understand of it all.

Anna: But you liked the sound of it.

Emma: Yes. So tender means ...

Anna: Well the stones might be cut tenderly - that's with great care and precious handling - but the gemstones themselves are hard and brilliant -

Emma: What's brilliant?

Anna: Brilliant means the stones shoots out light and it's a great word because it looks like just that, it looks like what it means, all bright with the middle 'i's and 'l's and an 'i' again and then the t that cuts it off sharply - it's like a word that lights up from the inside, like a lantern, the word 'brilliant' ...

Emma: I want to do some more gypsy poems one day - do they have crystals?

Anna: I'm not quite sure -

Emma: Yes, like crystal balls -

Anna: Oh I see, fortune telling gypsies - but their 'crystal ball' is not a gemstone, more like a glass ball. This is a rubellite tourmaline you're looking at in your gemstone book, Emma.

Emma: Really - that's not for love is it, for romance? It reminds me of something more about me. I don't quite know. I don't know what the stone's heart is telling you.

We look at photos of rubellite tourmalines.

Anna: Okay, well apparently it shines from red to shocking pink, which is your colour, isn't it?

Emma: It would be protecting for passion and love and it would be very rare. I want to protect myself lately, I don't know why about it. It's something more private, like I was saying about that person's jewellery (and dress before), I want one myself, I'd like a cheaper but nice and valuable one, I'd like a jewel stone in soft pink.

Anna: It says here you can get them in seductive red.

Emma: No, maybe I don't want seductive red - well I want both, seductive red and soft pink!!!!

The Ruby Ring

By Emma Brodie

Am I going to one day wear a rubellite tourmaline? I hope so.

A crimson one, or probably the watermelon one ..

I like the rainbow one too, that's a bit magical ...

Rubelite tourmaline,

They're gemstone words, beautiful words - like in Stephanie's poems -

Pure, the colour of love, it would be like treasure inside,

The kind of jewel that has a rainbow sparkle

There could be a leprechaun inside, it's more Irish,

More of the delicate little creatures of Ireland,

Inside the gemstones of greenish colour -

Can you put that in it? The emerald stones, I mean -

The colour of deep teal is a good one too, I saw it at Tiifany's

The boxes of deep teal, the colour of these fancy things out there,

Of Valentine's Day, of very rich treasures for romance

Of everything that glitters and sparkles -

Yes, all girls out there in Tiffany's are like that,

Glittering and twinkling, giggling, sweetness,

Old fashioned beauty of a long time ago ...

Anna: Cool! That was well done, Emma! I think you are actually quite happy with yourself, aren't you?

Emma: Yes. I am.