On Monday 22nd January, Buckingham Palace officially announced the engagement between Princess Eugenie (27) and her long-term boyfriend Jack Brooksbank (31).
The couple will be wed at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle in the Autumn, the same venue where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will tie the knot this May.
Jack Brooksbank surprised Princess Eugenie with the proposal in December while they were in Nicaragua and, without a ring, which they designed together with the help of a London jeweller afterward.
Proposing wihtout a ring is a new trend which is becoming more and more common lately. I see many couples coming through my door and wanting to design the engagement ring together. I personally love the process of working with the newly engaged couple.
The British Royal Family has a love for coloured stones and this engagement ring is a beautiful and classic cluster ring design yet with a twist.
The centre stone is a natura oval cut "Pink Padparadscha Sapphire" surrounded by a halo of ten round brilliant cut diamonds and two pear shape diamonds on the shoulders, all set on a yellow gold shank.
Natural Padparadscha Sapphires are usually found in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and they belong to the corundum gem family. They are famous for their unusual pink/orange colour which is considered one of the rarest among sapphires. And just out of curiosity, the term “Padparadscha’ is derived from the Sinhalese word for ‘aquatic lotus blossom.’
In an interview with the BBC, Jack Brooksbank said: “The centre stone reminds me of my fiancé. It changes colour when it hits certain lights, much like Eugenie.”
I have to say that this ring looks very similar to the ruby engagement ring her father, Prince Andrew, gave to her mother Sarah Ferguson, when he proposed in 1986 and also very much alike to the Duchess of Cambridge’s engagement ring (belong to Princess Diana).
It has been said that this ring could be worth anywhere between £7,000 and £100,00 even thought I find it very difficult to be able to put a number of something about which we don’t know the exact specifications.
I am sure that we will see many more cluster engagement rings commissioned in the nearest future.
And just on a personal note, my father proposed to my mother - in the ‘60s - with a platinum cluster engagement ring with a natural green emerald centre stone set with a double halo of diamonds and split shank . A real classic which I don’t think will never go out of fashion.
NB: All images are borrowed from different media, internet sites and MBC archive.