In my 18 years in the jewelry business, I have seen only a handful of items influence an entire industry from high to low and everything in between. The Tiffany heart charm bracelet (which produced more incarnations--read: knock offs-- than one would imagine) and also provided the hot seller in department stores for so many years that the product development teams were hoping for another  item to replace it, similar to how  Samuel Beckett's characters were "Waiting for Godot."

    But almost up there in the ranks with this bracelet was the "Tin Cup" necklace, named appropriately after the movie, which came out in 1996. For those of you in the business since then or before, you will remember the phenomenon of Wendy Brigode's baroque pearl station necklace that graced Renee Russo's neck.  Brigode's clever design and Russo's classic elegance brought pearls back with a vengence in the '90s--modernizing them, the way in which Chanel had done in her heyday. Unfortunately for Brigode (unless you are of the mind that "imitation is the best form of flattery", the necklace spawned many variations at many price points, in everything from freshwater to glass pearls, sometimes sparked with diamonds, semi precious stones or Swarovski crystal. And, it was item that had lasting power.

Since then, certain jewelry trends were jump started by actresses in films or TV, most notably the six year running, HBO series,  Sex and The City: namely horseshoes, nameplates and large hoop earrings. But none of these items has the impact of Wendy Brigode's necklace.

Not even the blue diamond heart pendant in Titanic, originally made for the film with a CZ by London based jewelers Asprey & Garrard.

It has now been 14 years since the "Tin Cup" necklace first appeared and Brigode has updated with oxidized pave diamond balls, which work in longer chain styles and a few other versatile styles. With all of the oxidized metal as a backdrop for black and white diamonds, cording, diamonds on thin threaded friendship bracelets, it looks like a trend whose time has come again