Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry

Say hello to Marilyn and her many, many good friends.

"Men grow cold
As girls grow old
And we all lose our charms in the end
But square-cut or pear-shaped
These rocks don't lose their shape
Diamonds are a girl's best friend"

— Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

When Jewelry is shown in fiction, it's to pretty up a scene. Pretty much like Real Life, since wearing jewelry is almost always to enhance appearance and/or to show off wealth.

Sparkly jewelry also makes a great MacGuffin; a Mineral MacGuffin, even.

Sub Tropes include:

• Gem-Encrusted (Sticking jewelry on anything it would pretty up)
• Diamonds in the Buff
• Distracted by the Luxury (as jewelry is the most common luxury used)
• Magical Accessory
• Ring of Power (since rings are jewelry)
• Power Crystal

A Sister Trope to Pretty in Mink, Gold Makes Everything Shiny, High-Class Gloves, Mineral MacGuffin.

Compare Everything's Better with Sparkles, Pimped-Out Dress, Conspicuous Consumption (which this trope almost always is), and Billionaire Wristband (a Spear Counterpart).

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Gratuitous Princess of Hello! Sandybell wears a sparkly giant crown, two necklaces, a golden pendant and a large medallion made of gold.
• The Rose of Versailles not only has MANY Gorgeous Period Dresses, but also features the Diamond Necklace Affair mentioned below.
• Naru Osaka's mother in Sailor Moon is a widow who owns a jewelry store, and the first episode of The '90s anime features it.
  • Of course we also have the Silver Crystal aka the Ginzishou, which takes the form of a diamond. And then all of Usagi's Transformation Trinkets are basically shiny lockets whee she keeps her magical crystals, Ginzishou included.
• The Boazanian noblewomen of Voltes V provide several examples, complete with Gorgeous Period Dress:
  • Katherine dons a necklace held together with golden beads as a cord and a blue gemstone in the middle.
  • Lozaria◊'s headpiece, necklace and earrings are very elaborate.
  • Lozaria's mother-in-law◊ wears a necklace that has three chains of golden beads.

Arts

• Nefertiti Bust: Aside from the cap crown, the bust wears a luxurious golden collar piece with blue, green, and red elements that match the crown's colors.

Comic Books

• Even though she's an army nurse serving during World War I, Golden Eyes of "Golden Eyes" and Her Hero "Bill" gets to wear some serious bling when she's captured by a German officer who tries to get her to fall in love with him by invoking Distracted by the Luxury - not only does she get dolled up in looted French evening wear, she's dripping in gemstones & strings of pearls so that she'll look nice for their Captive Date. When Golden Eyes is rescued by her boyfriend Bill, she sells "every pretty thing, down to the last glitter and glint of gold and diamond," and donates the proceeds to an orphanage.
• Thunderstrike: When Marcy opens her health salon, she combines Costume Porn and Sex sells, which includes a diamond necklace that subtly points to her cleavage.

Comic Strips

• Jeremy in Zits is trying to ask a girl advice for what to give his mom for her birthday, and before he can complete his sentences the girl keeps interrupting "Jewelry. Yep, definitely jewelry." On another occasion, he bought his girlfriend Sara one earring with an I.O.U (a very tiny one that fit where the earring would go in the box) for the other one when he can afford it. Sara was nonetheless touched by the gesture.

Films — Animation

• In Turning Red, when Mei's aunties are introduced there are shots of each woman's jewelery which doubles as a Chekhov's Armoury as those items serve as their talismans housing their red panda spirits.

Films — Live-Action

• The song "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" from the musical version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (made famous by Marilyn Monroe in the film version).
• Some of Satine's Pimped Out Dresses in Moulin Rouge! have "Diamond" in the name by the costume designer — and the evil Duke offers her a necklace so stunning that even she is briefly dazzled.
• In Love Potion Number Nine, Sandra Bullock is offered a diamond necklace by an Italian car magnate. At first she refuses, but when she finds out that his company is the one that made her piece-of-crap car, she takes it from him.
• Jodhaa Akbar. What did you expect?◊ Rajputs love their bling.◊
• Diamonds Are Forever and its very sparkly, fetish-laden title sequence.
• Ginger in Casino loves showing hers off.
• The ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz were changed from silver in the book — both shiny.
  • The change was partly so the slippers would show up better in Technicolor. As a MacGuffin, they need to be clearly visible.
• In Batman Forever, the Riddler and Two-Face are later seen covered in expensive jewelry as they're driving through Gotham following a robbery. Riddler's actually wearing a diamond tiara as he's trying to count money.
• Downplayed in The Fly (1986): The morning after Seth's fateful teleportation, he and his lover Veronica stroll through a street market. He purchases a simple necklace with a golden, heart-shaped pendant for her, fastens it around her neck, then whispers "Kiss me." She obliges. Earlier in the film it was established that she didn't wear jewelry, but just as she expanded his Limited Wardrobe of five identical suits with the gift of the more casual clothes he is now wearing, he tweaks her look here. Notably, she wears this necklace for all but one of her subsequent scenes (when she wakes up from a Nightmare Sequence).

Literature

• Sisterhood Series by Fern Michaels: Myra Rutledge has a pearl necklace that she tends to play with out of habit. In Home Free, she apparently pulled on her necklace too hard, breaking it, causing pearls to spill on the floor, and she had to go shopping for a new necklace chain.
• In A Brother's Price, Jerin owns one piece of jewelry passed down from his grandfather. Ren sees it and believes it's the Emerald Hart, which was worn by the Prince Alannon when he was abducted.
• The Goblin Emperor: There are loads of jewels that the elven emperor just has to wear. Maia feels weighed down by all the opals.
• In The Wheel of Time, bracelets and necklaces are signs of status among ranking Aiel women, not least because they are the standard currency of wagers among the Wise Ones. A heavy load of jewelry gives the message that it was won through extensive, judicious shrewdness in a Proud Warrior Race culture.

Live-Action TV

• Interview with the Vampire (2022):
  • Lestat de Lioncourt frequently adorns his fingers with large, ostentatious rings because he enjoys being flashy and flaunting his old world affluence.
  • "...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding": Because Claudia is the daughter of a moneyed vampire couple, she wears an ornate floral-patterned gold headband studded with pearls for her 17th birthday party, and Lestat's gift to her is an emerald necklace that once belonged to a marquis. She's wowed by it, but the chain is too long for her, so Louis assures her that they'll find one in her size.
  • "Like Angels Put in Hell by God": After Claudia tosses Antoinette Brown's scorched finger into the fireplace, she slips on the dead woman's silver ring which features a big flower design (petals, stem and leaves) embedded with red gems on to her own thumb and admires its beauty.
  • "The Thing Lay Still": While performing on the Krewe of Raj float, Lestat sports a shimmering tiara and necklace as part of his Marie-Antoinette Drag Queen getup in order to appear more queenly.
• Merlin: Lady Morgana is usually decked out with elaborate jewelry to denote her wealth and status, in direct contrast with Guinevere, who usually ornates herself with flowers.
• Schitt's Creek:
  • Thanks to Alexis being desperate to get back a locket she re-gifted to Twyla, Twyla ends up on the right side of a jewelry swap with the former rich girl. Twyla is seen happily wearing Alexis's tiara, armbands and other assorted baubles.
  • Patrick proposes to David with a set of men's rings that are identical to the silver ones David wears every day, except in gold.
• A male example in SCTV with Bobby Bittman, who wears costume rings on each finger (except his thumbs and often his right middle finger) and is virtually never seen with less than 3 or 4 gold necklaces at any given time. To a lesser extent, Sammy Maudlin, host of his own eponymous late-night gabfest, always has a couple of rings on and a necklace or two, though he's nowhere near as glittery as Bittman.
• Several times in Sex and the City, the girls have reacted with near orgasmic glee when given fancy jewelry by their beaus. Miranda being the exception, she's the only one who hates grand romantic gestures.
• Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman wears a gold tiara and gold or silver bracelets. Ooh shiny!

Music

• Luke "Emperor" Steele of Empire of the Sun is very fond of gold, having numerous custom pieces made for stage, music videos and, apparently, just swanning about.
• Jamster created a female cat character named "Pussycat Tiger" in 2009. The female cat tries to win the heart of a male cat in the music video. The music video itself is filled with tons of diamonds which both cats are seen riding.
• The Jennifer Lopez song "Jenny From the Block" has the line "Don't be fooled by these rocks", although the video and her lifestyle did make the line seem empty.
• In The '80s, Tears for Fears made it fashionable for straight men to wear earrings.◊ Curt Smith's left earlobe is adorned with a stud earring which is still there to this day. Roland Orzabal's left ear is also pierced, and he had a pair of dangling metallic hearts, but they went missing before the release of the band's third album.

Theatre

• The song Glitter and be Gay from Candide is (almost) all about how much the character loves her flashy wardrobe, especially the jewels.
• In Kismet there's "Baubles, Bangles and Beads."
  "I'll glitter and gleam ...
  Baubles, bangles and beads."

Toys

• Barbie has loads of jewelry, and even has some in the Official Cosplay Gear sets.

Video Games

• Diamonds are a weapon in Dead Rising, although not very effective at first.
• Redd White in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, is covered in jewelry and can make it sparkle just by showing it off.
• The Final Fantasy series has Accessories/Relics which could increase stats of the user.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has Scions, a group of accessories which the wearer can summon Espers which appear from Final Fantasy XII.
• In the Harvest Moon series, it's often possible to have jewelry crafted from orichalcum. It has no real use, but makes a good gift.
• Parodied in Grand Theft Auto III radio ad.
  (handsome voice) "Nothing says 'love' like a lump of carbon mined by wage slaves in Angola."
• Bejeweled is basically this trope.
  • Gyromancer, which was co-developed by the same company and is essentially Bejeweled embedded in a Role-Playing Game, carries the jewel motif over. There's no stated reason in the plot as to why jewels are important in-game, though - they're just pretty.
• Found all over the place in the Dark Parables. Because they're fairy tale princess-related games, there are dozens of sparkly shiny objects in almost every installment, including carriages, scepters, tiaras, and other jewels. There are also Gem-Encrusted everyday items like axes.
• Guenevere: A lot of focus is given to the purple emerald King Arthur gives Guen (by way of Lance) for their wedding, especially once it goes missing in Book II.
• Frost in Mortal Kombat 11 has gold colored clothing and gold rings on every finger as part of her Evil Makeover that runs on a Gold and White Are Divine, in addition to her usual blue, color scheme.

Web Animation

• DSBT InsaniT: Portica gets a silver star-shaped hairpin as part of her Clothing Switch in 'Store Story'.

Web Comics

• Appears from time to time in Tower of God. At one point, Viole's team has to enter a giant water beast's blow hole to find Jigena's flower, a plant that grows a jewel in it's blossom. Yeongsook's wands are rings, giving them a Hidden Weapons bonus. Family crests worn as jewelry also play an important role.

Western Animation

• In an episode of Goldie Gold and Action Jack, Goldie uses her pearl necklace as an impromptu seal on a magic spirit after the old seal was broken.
• The Disney Princesses, especially with their "Jewel Princess" set.
• As the name implies, Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders used them for loads of things, from MacGuffins to Transformation Trinkets.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Rarity's dresses are decorated with lots of gems, and gems are a shovel away to get in Equestria. Plus her cutie mark is three diamonds.

Real Life

• The "Affair of the Necklace" was a historical scandal where a con artist named Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois stole an extremely expensive diamond necklace, and tricked the jeweler into thinking Marie-Antoinette was buying it. It's featured in lots of media, like the aforementioned The Rose of Versailles and the movie The Affair of the Necklace with Hillary Swank as Jeanne.

---