Shopaholics

In Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly, played by Audrey Hepburn, wore a fake necklace as she stood before Tiffany's display window on Fifth Avenue, her cheek pressed against the glass. Carrying a brown paper bag, she ate a croissant from it and drank hot coffee while gazing enviously at everything inside the store.

At first, Tiffany's had merely been a tiny stationery and trinket shop on Broadway, but Charles had grand ideals and ambitions. He wanted Tiffany's to become a world-class brand. At the time, royal jewelry from European courts was of exceptional quality, the finest in the jewelry world.

Increasingly wealthy Americans longed to own royal jewels, symbols of high society, as affirmation of their own worth and a declaration of their newfound economic and social standing. They searched far and wide for European aristocratic treasures, but what made Tiffany's famous was not jewelry—it was silverware.

In 1879, the Greek Sotirio Bulgari emigrated with his family to Naples, Italy. In 1884, he opened a silver shop in Rome. Around the same time, Tiffany's introduced its most classic setting diamond ring. Its six-pronged platinum design set the diamond atop the band, displaying it to the fullest and allowing its brilliance to refract from every angle. Once the "six-prong setting" appeared, it immediately became the international standard for engagement rings.

Women never spared expenses on their weddings. It had always been that way throughout history.

Since Gianluca had given them the black card to use, Pomona had no intention of holding back. There were many luxury stores in T Square. Bulgari was the third-largest jeweler after Cartier and Tiffany's. Unlike Tiffany's, which emphasized the dazzling brilliance of diamonds, Bulgari combined gemstones of many different colors, using semiprecious stones such as coral, amethyst, tourmaline, citrine, and peridot, even ceramics, all steeped in