When Zendaya took to the Golden Globes carpet this year with a very large and very sparkly engagement ring, the internet was soon abuzz with questions over who had designed it.
It wasn’t Bulgari, the Italian jewelry house for whom Zendaya is a brand ambassador. Nor was it a big name brand owned by a luxury conglomerate. Instead, the ring, a 5.02-carat diamond in a slightly quirky Georgian-style setting, was the work of Jessica McCormack, a New Zealand-born designer who has become a go-to for cool “day diamonds” by the likes of Dakota Johnson and Dua Lipa — and a growing fan base of wealthy women who don’t believe their sparkles should languish in the safe.
“What’s the point in that?” Ms. McCormack said last week from an armchair in her first store in the United States, which opened today on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. “There’s no joy if you can’t see them and others can’t enjoy them on you.”
Ms. McCormack, who speaks with a friendly Kiwi twang, wore a fuzzy gray cardigan, old deck shoes, white socks with red hearts and diamonds. Lots of them, in fact, shimmering on her ears, neck and wrists as workers put the finishing touches on the wood-paneled Beaux-Arts townhouse designed by the restoration architectural firm Johnston Cave Associates.
“My whole idea is of relaxed ease and fitting into your daily life,” she said. “It’s about functionality and fantasy, making jewels that are fun and cool but wearable and that just make you incredibly happy every time you look in the mirror.”
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