Pre-Ramble: At a recent neighborhood dinner party, the dessert dishes had been cleared and, as coffee was being served, an open question was posed to the group, “Tell us something about you we don’t know.” It’s a curious thing to consider what item to share in a situation like this.

One guy had had John Travolta bum a cigarette off him while standing in a doorway in New York City. The woman seated next to him, a high level executive at a Fortune 500 company, disclosed that she had, in her youth, gotten into a brawl with another girl in a random cheerleading incident. Following on with that theme, the next person described how he had punched some kid in the jaw to settle up a line-cutting skirmish at the drinking fountain in fifth grade. (The kid had it coming.)

Then it was my turn. I’m sure there are plenty of things that people don’t know about me, like that I talk to my dog (and she talks back in a high squeaky voice) or, that I stick the good fortune cookie quotes at eye-level along the shelf over my desk. (I rip the stupid ones in half and throw them away.) But, in this rare moment, I had an opportunity to reveal something that really has no other appropriate venue to be known; it’s the kind of thing that’s really neat, but isn’t something you just bring up…

I once held the Tiffany Diamond (shown above, actual size) in the palm of my hand.

For real.

The table fell silent as people tried to get their head around the concept of me holding one of the world’s most famous and magnificent gems in my hot suburban little hand. I may as well have said that I was once struck by lightning. It is kind of surreal, even for me to think about.

Here’s how it happened: My husband and I moved from Detroit to New Jersey on our honeymoon (that’s another blog). While looking for work, I answered a help wanted ad in the New York Times. The job turned out to be art director for the in-house publications department at Tiffany and Company. (I know.) (I know!)  So began my Cinderella moment — a cubicle in the legendary Fifth Avenue store and a daily adventure designing layouts and directing photography for all manner of majorly amazing bling.

The merchandising department would literally roll up a cart loaded with jewelry, watches, silver, crystal, scarves and handbags and our job was to artfully and tastefully (the Tiffany brand is all about “tasteful”) present them in the printed media. On any given day, I could easily have tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, clumped into plastic bags on my desk. (Yes, of course I tried it all on.)

One day while we were working on a catalogue for a special collection of estate jewelry, I got a call.  The powers-that-be wanted the Tiffany Diamond on the cover. I’m all, “Great! … Can do! … Let’s look at the photos we have on file and decide which one to use.”

But No.  The powers-that-be wanted a new photograph taken; they felt that the existing pics of the celebrated jewel did not do it justice.

!!! !!!    (That’s me in my cubicle flipping out.)

In order to take the shot, the incredibly large, incredibly rare, fancy yellow, cushion-cut diamond, valued at over $12 million (in 1983), had to be moved from its armored display case on the store’s main floor to the in-house photography studio a few floors away. Needless to say, bullet-proof transport logistics on this priceless gem were a must, lest some butter-fingered art director bobble the bauble in the stairwell on the way up to the studio. Let’s just say that an undisclosed number of armed guards, helicopters, and copious amounts of insurance were involved.

It’s all about lighting: Once in the studio, two highly talented staff photographers attended to the gem with the precision of a team of neurosurgeons. They anchored the stone on set with a tiny piece of wax and began, in a subdued, meticulous manner, to reflect light at various angles into the facets of the stone using silver, white and black cards. In a situation where we’re basically shooting a straight-on view of a single stone, the role of the art director is to observe the proceedings, check the Polaroids (I’m old), and say, “Yep, there it is, … looks good.”  In a situation where there’s a 128 carat diamond in the room, it is also the role of the art director to say, “Hey, can I hold that thing in the palm of my hand before the clock strikes midnight and you guys both turn back into field mice?” 

The Take-Away: As I said, other than at dinner the other night, there is no place that I can tell this story. The photograph of the Tiffany Diamond we took that day (not it above) was stunning. If you’re ever in NYC, take a quick trip to the Tiffany and Company flagship store on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street (you can’t miss it). Go through the main door and over to your left against the north wall is a small window onto a vaulted case – take a deep breath and behold the sparkliness.

So,… back to sweeping cinders out of the hearth for me.

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