Jasmine Tookes celebrating engagement at Lake Powell. — Anne of Carversville is back on the road, powering our way towards Lake Powell. Had we remembered reading about Jasmine Tookes and David Borrero’s extraordinary engagement proposal adventure, we could have sewed up our spiritual glamping search in Navajo country last fall, as intended. **Image credit:** Background image by Dino Reishmuth Unsplash; Tookes and Borrero via Vogue.

When we left Mt. Shasta in the weeks before Christmas, heading back to the American Southwest was not on our agenda. I promised us Cairo or Nairobi, Morocco and maybe the Atlas Mountains. I love the south of France . . . so how is it that we’ve arrived back in Navajo Country?

Clearly I had energy vortexes on my mind, searching America for the perfect glamping spot to serve for a wedding proposal. The event was a fantasy, because British Vogue had already featured the wedding of Katie Robertson and Sophie Chew.

Charming flowers pop-up VW bus — Bluebird Design on Instagram,

Not once in that narrative did I recall the wedding proposal of Jasmine Tookes and Juan David Borrero — a spectacular romantic and spiritual event that happened in the land of energy vortexes in fall 2020.

The proposal is literally branded in my brain, it was so gorgeous.

I promised: “Wherever we go — for a perfect marriage proposal, a country wedding, or a civilized separation ‘uncoupling’ as Gwyneth Paltrow calls it — farm-fresh blooms will be on board.”

This part of the promise is delivered, as we hit the road again. This time, I’m driving AI-style, but a promise is a promise.

Imagine having your very own Flower Bus. It’s for real, and while I can’t say for certain that the bus is still moving in our COVID-riddled America, the Instagram of its owners Bluebird Design in Milwaukee is alive and well.

For Jasmine Tookes: A Day to Remember

When former Victoria’s Secret Angel Jasmine Tookes announced her engagement in Sept. 2020 to Juan David Borrero, a director of international markets at Snapchat, I was not focused on the future bride’s very spectacular 7-carat engagement ring from Ritani.

Seriously. Not for one moment did I care about the ring. Had I known that Ritani is a Brooklyn-based, highly-credentialed, resource for ethical-jewelry made in my old home borough, I would have paid more attention to the facts.

Given AOC’s ardent commitment to sustainability and ethical mining practices worldwide, Ritani should be on my radar, as a leader in lab grown diamonds. The company is located in Brooklyn, center of the creative universe in 2022 and then we have Ritani founder Joel Klein. I found him here. The loving relationship of Jasmine Tookes and her mother celebrity stylist Cary Robinson is well known, as is Robinson’s love for Ritani.

Jasmine Tookes wore simple Ritani earrings for her spectacular Labor Day 2021 wedding in Quito, Ecuador. Again, I missed the jewelry connections from start to finish, as we set off in search of the perfect glamping spot about six-weeks later. Ancestral spirits and a spiritual connection to the land always dominate my attention when we head West.

The spiritual energy of gems got my attention two weeks ago, when I read luxury jeweler Chopard’s Caroline Scheufele speak to the emotion generated by a recently-acquired emerald. Staring into the heart and soul of the exquisite gem, she described the moment as “surpassing any emotion [she] had ever known.”

Presumably, if Jasmine Tookes had described her diamond ring in these words, I would have listened up. But even Jasmine and Juan were channeling the terrain, the air, and the ancestral spirits of their engagement spot estimated to be 170 million years old.

To declare enduring love and a commitment to wed in such an atmosphere obliterates most superficial aspects of daily human existence. Clarity, facets, color, shape — these attributes are factors in the relationship that a couple has with her/their engagement ring[s]. But nothing ring-specific I know about can challenge the atmosphere and experience of getting engaged at Lake Powell.

For Jasmine Tookes and Juan David Borrero: A Day to Remember

Jasmine Tookes and Juan Borrero engagement in Lake Powell — Tookes and Borrero via Vogue and Ritani IG.

This spontaneous trip to the desert by the young power couple was the kind of out-of-this-world day most people only dream about. Tookes had less than two hours to pack before she was blindfolded for the adventure of a lifetime. First stop was where the couple met: The Rose in Venice, CA.

Then the couple’s chartered plane landed in the desert, and they strolled across the tarmac to a waiting helicopter. This was the moment that my heart began to tighten, because I knew where they were going — and the pictures didn’t lie.

Minutes later, the romantic couple dropped down near Lake Powell, which sits at the intersection of multiple borders: Arizona, Utah and the Navajo Nation.

A solitary table for two awaited them, set with champagne and charcuterie. After about an hour, the couple walked out onto a lookout, where a bunch of rocks spelled out WYMM? Tookes was temporarily confused, but then had an epiphany. Of course a high-level Snapchat executive would use an acronym for Will You Marry Me.

On schedule, a drone flew in with a small black pouch. Borrero dropped down on one knee. She said “YES!” The entire event was shared on Instagram, and the real media story was the 7 ct. nurtured for months ring. But not for me.

Beauty Born of Catastrophic Events

Modern humans find the Lake Powell landscape to be one of incredible beauty — and it is. But that beauty was produced by an evolutionary sequence that is dark and deadly, crashing and destructive. Thundering plates of earth grinded together, creating mountains and valleys in slow upheaval — but also high-intensity ones.

Lake Powell is even changing today, succumbing to severe drought, while simultaneously revealing new buried treasures. The ‘eternal’ landscape has known huge changes.

50,000 years ago, a meteorite struck this land, creating what is now called Barringer Crater, near Flagstaff, Arizona. Scientists estimate that the blast was 150 times stronger than the bombs America dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

An estimated 175,000,000 tons of rock were displaced when the meteorite struck.

Researchers believe that the deadly arsenal was only about 150 ft in diameter, but it hit what is now Arizona at an estimated weight of 300,000 tons hurtling through the earth. When humans wax poetically over ancestral spirits in such beauteous land, we conveniently omit deadly scenes like this one in our historical narratives.

The same is true of natural diamonds, which are born after a few hundred millions of years of incubation and — in some estimates — billions of years. Scientific American describes the process of diamond-creation for those who care. While the final, cut diamond may be exquisitely beautiful, there is nothing beautiful about how a diamond is created in nature.

The geology of diamond creation is violent. If your strong preference for natural diamonds is rooted in the belief that they are “natural” and therefore imbued with nature’s loving spirit and positive energy, I argue that their inherent energy or spirit is more violent than it is peaceful. This is the duality of Hindu culture and India’s important role as an original source of beautiful diamonds.

To view natural diamond creation as a kind of passive, pristine, beauty treatment denies the reality from which they are born. This reality is before we get to the mining issues. To contrast the alleged spiritual aspect of natural diamonds compared to inert and spiritless lab diamonds sounds like a romance novel — or better yet a natural diamonds marketing campaign.

Images of ethical jewelry — Background: Woody Kelly on Unsplash; Left Angelica Ross via Ritani IG. Ms. Ross, AOC can’t quite make out whether your image is Charlottesville or Richmond, but we covered both court cases and Anne visited both sites. Both statues are gone. Your story is well-told here.

What I do know is that I support the phasing out of fossil fuels and replacing them with alternative energies. Very recently, scientists experienced a major nuclear fusion breakthough that can bring us much closer to carbon-free energy. Do I really want to embrace the old way of making energy? No.

If you’re a student of quantum physics [who isn’t!], you know that the world’s finite diamonds may be needed for infinitely more important duties in our modern world. There will always be a top-tier market for the world most luxurious diamonds among really-rich people. But scientists may have other priorities in mind for diamonds, in ways that benefit our entire society.

I have no answers to the growing debate around natural diamonds and lab-grown diamonds except an inherent belief that as lab-grown diamonds achieve identical properties to natural diamonds, as they do now, their desirability only increases.

Produced with half the energy and a further commitment to make that energy renewable; creating stunning diamonds large and small at significantly reduced prices with a scientific composition identical to a natural diamond — these attributes of lab-grown diamonds will attract younger buyers more conscious of environmental impact and labor conditions. They arrive with an engagement ring budget budget that still likes larger scale when the topic is rings. They may be vegetarians and only buy organic, sustainable shoes. You will not convince them that lab-grown diamonds are not a fabulous choice.

Ethical Jewelry Is a Must

On the topic of ethical jewelry, AOC is much more informed. We do not write about jewelry [or most other products] today, without a discussion of environmental standards.

Anne of Carversville is read by very high-level business people and creatives, and we do not bend towards any suggestion not to “rock the boat” in corporate America.

One of the most prestigious luxury jewelry brands in the world turned in about 60-90 days maximum after my respectful critique of their website and Google results, indicating they were nowhere in speaking to issues of sustainability, ethical sourcing and consumer transparency on tracking all the elements of a ring, from stone to setting. I’ve spent enough years working in corporate America to know that I gave them a loving and respectful but deadly kick in the pants. And they are one of the most prestigious jewelry brands in the world.

So without taking a side in the lab vs. natural diamonds debate — strictly because I’ve not sufficiently researched the topic — everything I know about younger consumers and the values-driven people who read AOC is that lab-grown diamonds will only increase in popularity and demand.

If you embrace scientific, high-tech solutions to climate change and improved conditions for workers, then you will not express disdain over lab-grown diamonds.

The Rise of the Cultural Creatives and Smart Sensuality Women

One of our key muses — Gabriela Hearst — is continually inspired by ancient lands, artisans, indigenous cultures, and living in concert with nature. Hearst made the women artisans of Navajo Nation her own creative companions in Gabriela Hearst’s spring 2022 Chloe collection.

Updating myself on Hearst’s latest concepts and accomplishments, I discovered this painting hanging in her Manhattan townhouse. It spoke to me, as if it belonged in the center of this conversation. Yes, the woman in the Gravinese painting finds herself in a fractal — not a diamond — but my mind connected the painting back to Chopard’s Caroline Scheufele’s comment about her emotion over the emerald.

Is it too much to suggest that the spirit or energy of any diamond reflects back or mingles with the spirit of the person looking at it? Why assume it’s identical for every person? Could it sparkle more brightly in certain cases or radiate a more intense energy, depending on the person admiring it.

Woman in fractal painting in house of designer Gabriela Hearst. — Diego Gravinese Fractalia 5 in home of designer Gabriela Hearst.

For over 20 years, I’ve been focused on three major subsets of Americans: the traditionalists, the moderns, and the cultural creatives. Hearst’s Diego Gravinese Fractalia 5 is deeply rooted in the Cultural Creatives mindset. Most of us reading AOC are Cultural Creatives and/or Smart Sensuality women.

The latter are women who are sexy and smart; focused on achievement; and possessed with deep empathy for people and our planet. Often they are modern values women [you just can’t be rich enough or wear enough stuff on your back] who have crossed over to a much more progressive-values way of thinking. We are not show horses.

I’ve called us “lipstick liberals”, which the AOC crowd might deride. But AOC the Congresswoman has herself perfected the pouty red mouth.

Looking at Hearst’s Diego Gravinese painting Fractalia 5 brings other trailblazing women in this mold to mind, women we’ve written about for years at AOC. Think Beyonce, Amal Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lopez: They are all women who smash through the fractal panes of imaginary glass that keep them in check.

In a moment of serendipidity, I searched for information about the rings they wore. In the same way that Jasmine Tookes’ love affair with Ritani is all over the Internet, just not here at AOC, much information has been written about celebs and their design preferences. Among women I admire deeply, one shape — the emerald cut — emerges like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.

Two emerald cut rings and a fabulous art deco diamond and citrine bracelet — also emerald cuts — live in my own jewelry box. It never occurred to me until now that these preferences meant anything. Each piece was chosen and gifted just because I liked them.

Reading now about the emerald cut diamond and the women who prefer this shape — considered within the vision of this Diego Gravinese painting — I understand better the significance of this ring choice.

Famous women who wear emerald cut diamond rings. — Background: laark boshoff on unsplash. women who wear emerald cut diamonds: Top: Angelina Jolie; center left: Beyonce; lower left: Grace Kelly; lower right: Amal Clooney.

Women Who Wear Emerald Cut Diamonds

Emerald cut engagement rings are typically associated with highly-confident woman. Yes, it communicates understated elegance, but I like the idea of peering into the ring. To the extent that any ring reflects back the spirit of its owner, the very transparency and inner visibility of an emerald-cut ring communicates a message of inner resolve, backbone, courage and dedication.

These qualities might be considered masculine by some. The women who wear emerald-cut diamonds aren’t relying on dazzle or any kind of fakery. They are self-assured, modern women wearing an emerald cut diamond of the highest grade. Without multiple facets to dazzle away flaws, clarity is priority number one.

From a trend standpoint, art deco is rising without a doubt. A true femme fatale, Smart Sensuality woman exudes power and place through bold, elegant statements. There is a glamorous formality to emerald cut diamonds that has great appeal for her.

Young professionals in Manhattan are embracing cocktail hour and all the famous New York landmark bars. Crowds lineup to go to Bemelmans at the Carlyle, wrote the New York Times around Thanksgiving. Martinis are on the menu. 20-somethings are enjoying afternoon tea at the Plaza Hotel’s Palm Court; and Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room is roaring back.

Jasmine Tookes channeled this 1950’s glamour, choosing to be married in a crown inspired by Grace Kelly. I knew neither fact when choosing Grace Kelly in ‘High Society’ for a visual in the emerald-cut rings above. Vogue covered the magnificent Jasmine Tookes and Juan David Borrero wedding, for which Tookes kept her Ritani jewelry simple.

She wore only earrings and her engagement ring, leaving me to wonder just how many ancestral spirits hovered in and above the Catholic Church in the heart of Quito [Ecuador]. Talk about an affair to remember. ~ Anne