On Friday (September 25th), Taylor Swift released the expanded edition of her twelfth studio album. The new edition The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore features four new songs from the Grammy Award winning artist. In the supplied artwork she has swapped rings in the new Patient Zero imagery for the release of the new single for an entirely new diamond ring.
UPDATE: Taylor Swift was last night photographed at the MTV VMA’s wearing her original Old Mine-cut engagement ring last night (Sunday 27th September). Following her being pictured in the new emerald cut ring on the album artwork of The Life of a Showgirl: Encore the ring given to her by Travis Kelce was back on her finger. It looks as though she wore the new ring only for the shoot.
Her engagement ring is an Old Mine cut diamond on a yellow gold band, and published estimates valued it up to $1million. People Magazine revealed that it had been created for Travis Kelce to pop the question by New York jeweller Kindred Lubeck. The New York-based goldsmith and jewellery designer specialises in unique gemstone pieces featuring delicate hand-engraving, which she sells under the label Artifex Fine Jewelry. The couple married in July this year.
Read: Taylor Swift wore Cartier to marry Travis Kelce: check out all the wedding details here
Swift’s engagement ring features a large Old Mine brilliant cut diamond, weighing at least 8 carats, and a delicately hand-engraved yellow gold band. Fellow designer Maddy Sangster, of UK jewellers Heavenly London, estimated its value to be “around £500,000” (around $673,600).
Lisa Levinson, head of UK at the Natural Diamond Council commented at the time. “The choice of an antique diamond reflects an interest in story and provenance. This diamond could have had many lives and experiences before it was chosen to be their engagement ring. Many old cut diamonds have been refashioned which means their rarity increases by the year.”
The ring Swift is wearing on the new artwork for Patient Zero couldn’t look more different. It is a large emerald-cut diamond, also around 8–10 carats, with a white-metal setting, probably white gold or platinum, fourth generation gemologist Olivia Landau told Page Six Style.
Nilesh Rakholia, Founder and wedding/engagement ring expert at Abelini told us, “It’s noticeably smaller than her real engagement ring. Her actual diamond is believed to be around 10 carats, whereas this looks closer to the 4 to 5-carat mark. If this were a high-quality natural diamond, a ring of this size and style could potentially be worth somewhere in the region of $100,000 to $250,000 (£74,000 to £185,000), although you couldn’t give a precise valuation from an image alone. If it’s a lab-grown diamond or another stone being used specifically for the shoot, the value could of course be considerably lower.”
Swifties are speculating that the change may be an Easter egg as Taylor Swift is known to plant coded messages in her artwork. No one other than Swift herself knows the meaning.
Her own, highly distinctive Victorian style engagement ring is a much softer piece of jewellery set in yellow gold and holding that antique Old Mine Cut diamond. This new ring is a much more conventional modern, geometric emerald-cut solitaire. What does it all mean? Now that is a question.
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