Ca$hing In Like A Karda$hian - Princess Style

Outside of the British royals aka Windsor Inc., has there ever been a family so brazenly branded as the Kardashians?  No, I didn't think so.
And not surprisingly, the brains belong this brilliant branding campaign belong to the power mom, Kris Kardashian Jenner.

This woman is a genius.  No really she is.   There should be case studies written for the Harvard Business Review about how she turned her B list brood into the big buck$.  I have nothing but admiration for her marketing skills which begat a very successful and long running reality tv show making her girls into superstars. And now the biggest star of them all, Kim Kardashian, has just had her celebrity all star wedding.

In case you weren't invited to the ceremony, here's the exclusive video. I wonder if the amount that she made by selling the exclusive film rights to E! paid for the cost of the wedding...I bet it did and more. Kim, like her mother, is seriously  savvy (product endorsements, business ownership, self promotion, etc.) and honestly I admire her business acumen.


Kim is a truly beautiful girl, a true Hollywood princess. Don't you agree?
And doesn't she make a radiant bride?

And I am so thrilled that she chose to grasp the trend that we've been tirelessly promoting at Beladora. Yes, you know what trend I'm talking about...jewelry worn on your head, princess style.  We've been wearing necklaces on our heads for years, no really we have.

Here's a photo from a couple of years ago of  Miss de Ville wearing our Queen of the Nile emerald and diamond necklace on her head.  Seriously, there isn't a fancy necklace here at the HQ that doesn't at one time or another end up draped across a forehead or perched across the top of a head tiara style. So perhaps now, after the Kim Kardashian wedding photos, this trend will finally catch on.

So, if having your forehead draped in diamonds isn't your style, what about wearing a brooch that belonged to a Grand Duchess?

This story that we have on this diamond brooch was that it belonged to the Princess Juliane Henriette Ulrike of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld who married into the Russian royal family and became the the Grand Duchess Anna Feodorovna of Russia.

Here is her portrait by Elisabeth Louise Vigee LeBrun. 

The Grand Duchess led quite a life. Married at the age of 14, she was miserable in Russia and returned to Coburg after three years in 1799. After a brief reconciliation with the Grand Duke, she left him for good.  Later, like Germaine de Stael, she led the kind of libertine-intellectual life that was only available to women of her class.
According to Wikipedia

On 28 October 1808 Anna gave birth to an illegitimate son, named Eduard Edgar Schmidt-Löwe. The father of this child may have been Jules Gabriel Emile de Seigneux, a minor French nobleman. Eduard was ennobled by his mother's younger brother, Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and assumed the surname von Löwenfels by decree on 10 January 1818.



Later, Anna moved to Bern, Switzerland, and gave birth to a second illegitimate child in 1812, a daughter, named Louise Hilda Agnes d'Aubert. The father was Rodolphe Abraham de Schiferli, a Swiss surgeon, professor and chamberlain (French:Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, German:Oberhofmeister) of Anna's household from 1812 to 1837. In order to cover another scandal in Anna's life, the baby was adopted by Jean François Joseph d'Aubert, a French refugee.


Two years later, in 1814, Constantine, accompanied by her brother Leopold, tried to get Anna to return to him but her firm opposition prevented this attempt from succeeding. That year, Anna acquired an estate on the banks of Aare River and gave it the name of Elfenau.[5] She spent the rest of her life there, and, as a lover of music, made her home a center for domestic and foreign musical society of the era.

I love her story and I can't wait to learn more about her.

Amy Winehouse - And She Said Blow, Blow, Blow

In my own contrarian way I have to admit that I am insufficiently sensitive when it comes to Amy  Winehouse's recent admission into The 27 Club.

It's not that I didn't appreciate her talent, I did.
And I do find it extraordinarily sad for any person, young or old, to be imprisoned by addiction.
But really, being found with heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and horse tranquilizer...WTF was wrong with her?

I've known young people who could barely come up with the funds to go through rehab.  They struggled not just physically and emotionally but financially to kick their habits. They had to quit their jobs spend months in treatment and start their careers all over again.
Winehouse on the other hand, leaving a 10 million GBP estate, she could handily afford the very best rehab program and long term treatment.
Sorry but like many others, she just didn't want to clean up her act.
From Lindsey Lohan to Charlie Sheen to Amy Winehouse, I guess that I'm just sick and tired of celebrities and their drug problems. 

Also, while watching the news on the TV at the gym over the weekend, I was amazed about how the major channels had virtually nothing to report about the tragedy in Norway and went on and on about Amy Winehouse. 

Now, you probably disagree with me and that's OK.
 Dash wrote a lovely and sensitive post about Amy Winehouse.

Don't Mess With Murdoch Unless You Want To Get Wailed By Wendy

I knew that Tabitha would be on this story in a New York Minute

Forget Tiger Mom - Here Comes Tiger Wife

Don't mess with Murdoch unless you want to get wailed by Wendy!

And You Thought Diana At 50 Was Bad

I love Vanity Fair magazine...have I told you that before?
They wasted no time on one-upping Tina Brown's tacky Newsweek cover

with their own take on dead royalty

This made my week.

Bilderberg Conference or Another Invitation Lost In The Mail

You know it was bad enough that my invitation to the World Economic Summit at Davos was lost in the mail and now this...

I didn't receive an invitation to the Bilderberg Conference being held at the Survretta Hotel in St. Moritz Switzerland.

How is this possible?

Here's the list of attendees from the US

Alexander, Keith B., Commander, USCYBERCOM; Director, National Security Agency
Altman, Roger C., Chairman, Evercore Partners Inc.
Bezos, Jeff, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com
Collins, Timothy C., CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC
Feldstein, Martin S., George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Hoffman, Reid, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn
Hughes, Chris R., Co-founder, Facebook
Jacobs, Kenneth M., Chairman & CEO, Lazard
Johnson, James A., Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
Jordan, Jr., Vernon E., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
Keane, John M., Senior Partner, SCP Partners; General, US Army, Retired
Kissinger, Henry A., Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
Kleinfeld, Klaus, Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
Kravis, Henry R., Co-Chairman and co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis, Roberts & Co.
Kravis, Marie-Josée, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc.
Li, Cheng, Senior Fellow and Director of Research, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution
Mundie, Craig J., Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation
Orszag, Peter R., Vice Chairman, Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
Perle, Richard N., Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Rockefeller, David, Former Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
Rose, Charlie, Executive Editor and Anchor, Charlie Rose
Rubin, Robert E., Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury
Schmidt, Eric, Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
Steinberg, James B., Deputy Secretary of State
Thiel, Peter A., President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
Varney, Christine A., Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust
Vaupel, James W., Founding Director, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Warsh, Kevin, Former Governor, Federal Reserve Board
Wolfensohn, James D., Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC

Come on now...if there's going to be a New World Order
I want to be in on it, don't you?
And besides, I think that it would be so much fun to have cocktails and chit-chat with the director of the NSA and the co-founder of Facebook.  I bet those guys can par-tay!

Instead of dealing with my buddies in the NWO
I've been busy making sure that the Beladora goods are out there on display

like this vintage watch chain being worn by Peter Facinelli at the MTV movie awards.

Naturally, I don't even know who Peter Facinelli is...
I heard a rumor that he's in some series called Twilight....whatever
But I am really liking how he rocks a 3 piece suit!

Happy Friday!

Mariah Carey's Wedding Ring - Words Fail Me

When Mariah Carey and her husband Nick Cannon said "I do" to each other for the third time at their Beverly Hills home on Friday, Cannon, 29, presented his wife of two years with an unusual piece of bling: a huge, diamond- and sapphire-encrusted bauble designed to look like a high-end, thoroughly inedible version of the classic children's "ring pop" candy.

The ring is made of white gold, diamonds, and pink sapphires, and comes in a special box with a "spinner" so "you can see it sparkle under the lights inside," according to Jason Arasheben, the CEO of the Jason of Beverly Hills jewelery store where Nick purchased the ring. The spinner is another feature reminiscent of ring pop candy rings, some of which had spinners.Cannon reportedly proposed to Carey in 2008 with a real diamond hidden in a ring pop candy wrapper.

De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum

SJP - Obviously Needs More Time At The Gym

Now if SJP just added an additional two hours a day to her daily two hour gym routine

she could look more like Madonna

Lady Gaga As I'd Like To See Her

Just because