Where did the Taj Mahal Diamond necklace Margot Robbie wore to the Wuthering Heights premiere come from?
The necklace has a long history, tied to Mughal empresses and Hollywood movie stars.
The Odyssey is an ancient text, believed to have been first composed around 2,800 years ago, but do you know what’s even older than that? The earrings American actor Zendaya wore to promote the movie at a photo-call in London on July 5.
The pieces were made from a pair of gold medallions discovered in Iran in 1947, which are estimated to be 3,000 years old. They were part of the Ziwiye hoard, a large collection of jewellery, ceramics and other artefacts, parts of which are housed in major museums across the globe.
As with anything over a century old from the region, quite a few questions arose.
Days after the pictures were first shared, people wanted to know how the pieces had made it to a private collection in London. Were they taken out of Iran in a less-than-proper way? Did the people whose culture they represented agree with how they were being used?
And perhaps most importantly, wasn’t it a bit on the nose for Zendaya to be using Iranian cultural heritage to promote an American film about a Greek legend at a time when the US and Iran were on opposite ends of the battlefield?
Some users on X said Zendaya was a repeat offender when it came to insensitivity in fashion after her outfit for another event promoting the film — a white gown from Italian fashion house Schiaparelli — was flown to London via private jet right after it had been shown on the runway at Paris Fashion Week.
Unfortunately, Zendaya is not the first celebrity to appropriate jewellery that mysteriously wound up in Western hands. In January, Margot Robbie promoted her film Wuthering Heights in Los Angeles while wearing the Taj Mahal diamond around her neck.
The diamond had little to do with the film, or its 18th-century setting, but it had everything to do with Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who had it made for his wife Nur Jahan.
That’s not even the worst case, which might be Cartier’s lending decisions surrounding the Patiala necklace, originally belonging to Maharaja Bhupinder Singh.
As per a report from India Today, the French jewellery house let Emma Chamberlain wear a part of the ornate necklace to the 2022 Met Gala, but refused a request from Diljit Dosanjh to wear it in 2026.
It’s bad enough that they didn’t let an Indian celebrity wear an Indian necklace, but it gets even worse when you realise Dosanjh’s Met Gala look was inspired by the Maharaja who owned it.