The story behind the Met first-timer's bespoke Pandora jewels.
Two Met Gala newbies took their first steps up the famed staircase last evening: Pamela Anderson and Pandora. As the face of the jeweler’s 2023 Lab-Grown Diamonds campaign, Anderson paired her custom necklaces and brooch with a coordinating nude custom Oscar de la Renta gown. Pandora launched lab-grown diamonds in 2022 but these pieces mark the debut of colored diamonds among the brand’s offerings.
Traditionally, when it comes to red carpet styling, the dress inspires the jewels. But in the case of custom jewelry and gown, the talent herself sparked the creative process. Pandora co-creative directors Francesco Terzo and Alessandro Filippo Ficarelli used Anderson’s passion for the natural world, especially her farm in British Columbia (pictured in her 2023 documentary, Pamela: A Love Story), as a starting point. In an email to InStyle, the designers wrote: “We were inspired directly by Pamela, and created the pieces around the idea of freshness, seeing Pamela as embodying a lightness similar to the morning dew.”
Anderson’s suite of jewels (two long strands of diamonds draped around her shoulder and along her upper back, and a brooch pinned at her hip) were handcrafted in Providence, Rhode Island—a mere three hours north of the Met. The smallest state in the country has a rich history as a jewelry manufacturing hub, dating all the way back to 1794. It still maintains a strong infrastructure of fine and costume jewelry craftsmanship and holds secret weapon status for many big-name jewelers.
The pieces were constructed from start to finish under the roof of a workshop that has been crafting jewels for the past four decades. From developing the design to sculpting the molds, the creation of the pieces at the facility happened in tandem with Terzo and Ficarelli. The technical build went hand-in-hand with the aesthetic vision, making sure the dream was realized with flawless—no diamond pun intended—execution. “Creating custom pieces is like telling and sharing a story. We were inspired to be distinctive and unique while staying true to our aesthetic,” the duo wrote. The diamond strands of the necklaces and cascading diamonds from the brooch were meant to symbolize dew drops in Anderson’s garden.
Designing for the Met Gala was an invigorating challenge for the co-creative directors. “There is a theatrical element to the Met themes that adds a layer of entertainment that is very interesting, fun, and allows for creative storytelling.” The pressure of recent years’ themes only helped stoke the fire of creativity. “A favorite is definitely the 2011 McQueen exhibition, which we found very powerful and moving. Additional favorites have included Heavenly Bodies in 2018 and most recently 2019’s Camp: Notes on Fashion.”
Once the designs were finalized, three-dimensional molds were built, then cast in an alloy of 24k white gold, which was then polished and finally set with Pandora’s lab-grown diamonds—the process required an estimated 380 hours from design to finished product. Nearly 200 carats of lab-grown diamonds were used in the pieces that passed through the hands of 20 artisans at the workshop.
In the end, what do all of these numbers add up to? One unforgettable moment for these Met Gala first-timers.