exclusive
Big girls need big diamonds, indeed.
Kathy Hilton has a new venture: a jewelry line in collaboration with jeweler Anna Zuckerman, and the glamorous socialite took inspiration from her late friend and noted diamond obsessive, Elizabeth Taylor.
“She would have [loved it],” the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star, 65, exclusively told Page Six Style while showing us pieces from the collection at her Bel Air, Calif., mansion.
Hilton noted that one item in particular — the Getty Diamond Crystalline Statement Necklace ($2,875) — makes her think of the jewelry connoisseur, who passed away at age 79 in March 2011, the most.
“This one is inspired by somebody that I love and adore very much: Elizabeth Taylor,” said Hilton, who — as a longtime friend of the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson — ran in the same Hollywood circles as the iconic actress.
The self-proclaimed “jewelry lover” also took a look at her own collection when creating her 50-piece Kathy Hilton x Anna Zuckerman collaboration, though the price tags are certainly more affordable than anything one might find in either Taylor or Hilton’s closets.
“The main sense of inspiration would be pieces that I have because I can talk about them,” she said, acknowledging that many of her favorite pieces — from the likes of Harry Winston, Tiffany & Co. and Cartier — were gifts from her husband, Rick Hilton.
“I’ve been collecting for a long time and then my my husband, through each child, [he gave me a] push present,” the mother of four continued, “and then birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day … so I have quite a collection.”
Years ago, Kathy — who shares adult children Paris Hilton, Nicky Hilton, Barron Hilton II and Conrad Hughes Hilton with Rick, 68 — stored such sentimental items at a bank in Los Angeles for safekeeping.
But she broke back into the vault so she and Zuckerman could replicate the luxe look of her own jewels.
“It took me back to the bank. I said, ‘I want you to look at it, feel it, take your own pictures, do your little sketches,’ and we picked 70 — 20 were not up to our standards — and so we have 50, we have more coming,” she teased.
“I used to call it travel jewelry, but now it is the jewelry that I wear,” she said of the affordable line.
Kathy’s line with Zuckerman ranges in price from $125 to $3,000, offering ample style and sparkle without an exorbitant price tag.
Zuckerman’s designs are made with diamond crystalline along with repurposed lab-grown diamonds and gem materials set in precious metals — an approach that is meant to not only keep costs down but extend the life-cycle of her pieces.
Kathy tells Page Six Style that she wore several pieces from her own collection during Oscars weekend in March. Paired with a designer gown, the “Paris in Love” matriarch raved that “no one could even tell” that her baubles didn’t set her back tens of thousands of dollars.
“I’m so confident when I wear this [collection]. I’m the type, I will share. I’ll get a compliment and I’ll go, ‘It’s not Harry Winston,’” she said.
She added, “[Zuckerman] was in fine jewelry before this, so you get that luxe feeling.”
Read More: Kathy Hilton shows off cost-effective jewelry line inspired by late pal