Inside The Diamond Game

In my formative years, my perception of diamonds, engagements, and proposals was shaped largely by my favorite films from Hollywood’s Golden Age. From Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” gazing pensively into the Tiffany windows like a tourist craning up at the Sistine Chapel to Marilyn Monroe in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” enshrining the doctrine that “diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” these were the images that first taught me what romance was meant to look like. In such enduring portrayals, elegance came packaged in little blue boxes; they conveyed all the glitz and glamour a young romantic could imagine.