From Yahoo

Hefty paychecks can shape Oscars’ star styles

By Kwala Mandel | Yahoo! Movies Oscars Blog –Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway (WireImage/Getty Images) Big-name designers spend millions on ad campaigns — but it turns out they can pay an additional price to make sure their styles are seen on A-list celebrities for events like the Oscars and Grammys. The fees for actresses like Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway to wear a fabulous gown or diamond jewelry can be as high as $750,000. Some say it is the industry's "dirty little secret" because it's "really aggressive" and "there are hundreds of thousands of dollars spent." But other top stylists say there is nothing wrong with the practice.

[ Photos: 2013 Golden Globes red carpet report card ]

"Of course it happens. I'm an advocate for it," says stylist Jessica Paster, who has worked with award show favorites including Cate Blanchett and Dakota Fanning, and says it is similar to advertising for a company. "If a celebrity wants to endorse a certain line, why shouldn't they? If they love the line, why not?"
Paster says the "dream" celebrities that fashion and jewelry houses pursue (and pay) are the nominees during award season. "It happens more for big award shows," she says. "Or designers ask if celebs can endorse them for a year and go to shows. What they are trying to do is start a relationship with the actor that lasts beyond the Oscars. If designers are enamored with actresses who are high-profile and it makes sense, there is nothing wrong with that. It is seen like an endorsement or an ambassador."
One designer has spent years lending million-dollar jewels to red-carpet stars. The jewels are always lent for free (with the occasional thank-you token for the celebrity, like a diamond necklace or pendant). However, some of the jewelry heavyweights — like Chopard and Tiffany & Co. — began to throw in big figures to lure celebrities. "Chopard was the one who got that going and started giving people checks for wearing their jewelry," says a source, who adds that representatives for celebrities like Kate Winslet and Marion Cotillard often set up the deals for their clients (much like a film or commercial).
"The designers were getting free press, so the agents and managers got involved in negotiating it like an endorsement deal," says the jeweler. "Chopard was paying well into six figures. Agents and managers don't bother if it is only 10 or 20 grand, because they are also getting a cut, so it needs to be worth it."
Jennifer Lawrence, who recently wore Chopard at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, was said to have been paid $100,000 to wear Chopard earrings at this year's Golden Globe Awards. And that number pales in comparison to what Hathaway reportedly earned during the 2011 Oscars. "When Anne Hathaway hosted the Oscars with James Franco, Tiffany's was rumored to have paid her $750,000 to wear their jewelry," says the jewelry insider, who spoke to Tiffany's about the reported number and says they didn't deny it.
While some stylists vent that being locked into one designer can limit creativity, Paster is not complaining, as long as the gowns and jewels are beautiful. Representatives for Tiffany & Co. and Chopard did not respond to requests for comments.

Procop & Jewelry sales

Strategy: The art of soft sales behind the Cannes scenes

By Claire Adler, Financial Times
Published: June 10 2011 18:13

While the paparazzi bulbs flashed on the red carpet during the 11 days of the Cannes Film Festival last month, hot jewellery deals were being struck behind the scenes with the world’s wealthy, often with great discretion.

Aside from career-changing film premieres and incendiary comments at press conferences, a tight schedule of invitee-only soft-sell social events added to the list of events to which visitors were clamouring to gain access.

Where Geneva jewellers Chopard are concerned, the Cannes Film Festival is a masterclass in the art of celebrity endorsement, with a host of dinner-jacketed bodyguards never too far away.

From Chopard’s Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend party to its Artists for Peace and Justice Dinner, both at the Martinez Hotel, to Aids charity AmFar’s dinner at the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc and the unveiling of precious bejewelled shoes by Chopard and Giuseppe Zanotti, it was all orchestrated with Swiss-like precision.

Chopard, which has shops in 124 countries, has premiered its main high jewellery collection on the red carpet there for four years and sponsored the event for 14, Cannes is the most important and intense event for showcasing its jewels in its glittering annual calendar. This year, celebrities wearing Chopard watches and jewellery included Robert De Niro, Jude Law, Jane Fonda, Uma Thurman and Bar Rafaeli.

About 30 members of Chopard’s international press, communications and VIP sales staff, alongside photographers and film teams, fly out for the duration of the event and are on call 24 hours a day. Chopard rents a large area on the top floor of the Martinez Hotel, where a lounge is set up for Chopard guests and rooms are used for staff to manage logistics behind the scenes.

“Images are sent out within hours of stars hitting the red carpet, while the sales force take high-end clients to the film festival to show Chopard’s new creations and give them the Chopard experience,” says a spokesperson.

Within minutes of Uma Thurman stepping out wearing cascade-effect emerald earrings from Chopard’s Red Carpet 2011 collection, they were sold to a customer.

In this environment, sales are secured at any time of the day or night. One year, Chopard lent Elizabeth Taylor a pink and white diamond necklace and earring set. Very late one night, the company received a call from Taylor’s bodyguard, saying she was insisting that she keep the jewels until the next morning.

Caroline Gruosi Scheufele, Chopard’s co-president, momentarily feared she might have a problem on her hands. But 10 minutes later, the bodyguard phoned again to say Taylor wanted to buy them and the deal was done.

Elsewhere, private jeweller Robert Procop, who installed himself in Monaco for the duration of the festival along with a designer and an assistant, claims he does not focus on multimillion-pound profile-raising activities via the red carpet. He simply focuses on Angelina Jolie. And it seems to be working.

Mr Procop is the former CEO of Asprey who left last year, taking his top client with him. He claims to own one of the world’s most important collections of rare coloured diamonds and gemstones.

During his time at Asprey, he worked with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the Protector collection and more recently his jewellery appeared on Ms Jolie in the film The Tourist.

At a photocall for Kung Fu Panda 2 during Cannes, Ms Jolie wore a bracelet of 50 carat emeralds and a nine carat vivid green Colombian emerald cushion ring from the collection she developed with Mr Procop.

Usually to be found jetting between his creative studio in Beverly Hills, gemstone laboratory in Geneva and offices in New York and Hong Kong, Mr Procop invited guests during the film festival to see the Style of Jolie jewellery collection in Monaco’s SEM-ART contemporary arts gallery, located away from the main tourist thoroughfares.

Owned by art collector Safia Al-Rashid, and designed to show diverse art forms, the gallery transformed jewellery into art against a monochrome backdrop, adorning blackened walls with storyboards and drawings of the making of the collection, alongside a presentation of the philanthropic element that sees a donation based on sales of the jewels directed to Ms Jolie’s charity, Children of Conflict.

While the gallery remained open to public visitors throughout the festival, Mr Procop held private appointments with five to 10 clients a day who hailed from 20 countries as well as intimate guest-list-only events for clients, details of which he does not divulge.

Visitors to the gallery included Charlene Whitstock, Prince Albert of Monaco’s fiancée, who “tried on some of the larger emerald pieces”, according to Mr Procop.

The majority of purchases were made by women buying jewels for themselves. “Most clients came alone,” says Mr Procop. “For the men, the focus was on acquiring collector gemstones such as the emeralds for investment, whereas the women were intrigued to see Angelina Jolie’s style and inspirations. They wanted to find out more about the pieces and discreetly try them on in the privacy of the gallery.”

But evidently, not all jewellers believe intimate soirées and face to face meetings are the way to go when it comes to selling jewellery. Geneva jewellers De Grisogono held a Bohemian themed party with music provided by R&B music stars Will I Am and the Black Eyed Peas for “800 handpicked guests”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011. You may share using our article tools.

Source: Team Jolie

Source: IMDb

Tree of Life website launched

Fox Searchlight has launched a comprehensive, interactive website for The Tree of Life at the domain www.twowaysthroughlife.com. Once you enter, you are greeted by hypnotic music and two options: “the father’s way” or “the mother’s way.” Each path offers ten different clips, none much longer than five seconds and mostly free of dialogue. I still can’t tell you much about the big picture of Terrence Malick’s film, but the site provides more of the ethereal imagery that I’ve been fawning over since the debut of the trailer.

Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain star in this “impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950s.”

From: Collider