The sighting: Actress Halle Berry just announced her engagement to longtime beau Van Hunt during a “Tonight Show” appearance! I am delighted to tell you that I have a close up of her ring to share with you and – spoiler alert – it’s extremely cool.
The jewels: Halle Berry’s engagement ring is a vintage piece dating to the Retro period (the late 1940’s through the early ‘50s). It’s a hefty ring with bold proportions and a sculptural design, featuring a round center diamond surrounded by step-cut blue sapphires set in yellow gold.
This retro stunner comes from For Future Reference Vintage, who has sourced jewelry for Berry before, including for the cover shoot of Forbes 50 over 50 in August 2025.
Online estimates place the likely value of the ring in the $100,000 to $200,000 range, but no official price has been confirmed.
The trends: Vintage rings, antique diamonds, and antique-inspired designs are huge in bridal right now, but most of what we’ve seen on high profile celebs has been from or inspired by the Art Deco, Edwardian, Victorian, and Georgian eras.
Berry’s ring is newer, from the 1940’s-50’s. Retro and Midcentury jewelry is bolder, gold-er, chunkier, less sentimental, and very different in feel from its immediate aesthetic predecessor.
(A timely reminder: antique = 100+ years old, vintage = 50+ years old. Don’t call this ring antique until 2040.)
Is Berry’s ring an outlier of the antique & vintage engagement ring trend, or the first sign of a Retro Renaissance to come? At this point it looks like the former, but we’ll have to see if more famous fiancées-to-be decide to follow her example.
More broadly, this supports the current rising prominence of my favorite engagement ring trend of all time: individuality and uniqueness.
What do we think? This is the engagement ring of someone who knows what she likes and doesn’t feel the need to suppress her preferences to conform to tradition. It’s sophisticated, striking, unapologetically bold, and charismatic in every way.
It’s also technically impressive – do you see how precise alignment of those rows of step-cut sapphires? This is a great moment for jewelers who want the public to appreciate quality design and craftsmanship.
This ring wouldn’t be right for everyone, but watch Berry repeatedly touching it on her hand during her Tonight Show and you can tell she’s absolutely delighted with it. It’s right for its wearer, and that’s the highest praise I can give an engagement ring.
Judgement: 1,940/10 for this ravishing retro ring
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