For many couples, an engagement ring is the ultimate love token, to be treasured for life.
But a growing band of celebrities are now looking to upgrade theirs as their fame – and bank balances – increase, or even swap them altogether.
Amanda Holden, presenter of Britain’s Got Talent, is the latest star to show off a shiny new engagement ring on her social media pages – with a source revealing that her record producer husband Chris Hughes bought it ‘as a little upgrade for Christmas’.
Diamond expert Zack Stone, of Steven Stone Jewellers, told The Mail on Sunday that Ms Holden’s new ring will have cost in the region of £200,000.
‘The oval ring with yellow gold band and platinum head with hidden halo looks to be six to seven carats in size and the cost likely to be £200,000,’ he said.
Her first engagement ring – from 2008 – was somewhat less extravagant. Mr Stone said: ‘That was a two-and-a-half carat, emerald-cut ring roughly around £40,000.’
The 53-year-old is not the first celebrity to update their engagement ring. Others include Meghan Markle, Victoria Beckham, Kate Hudson and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Ms Holden celebrated her 16th wedding anniversary to Chris last month, sharing a gushing media post of their Christmas-themed wedding day held at St Margaret’s Church in Somerset.
She wrote: ‘Sixteen years ago today I married the love of my life. Twenty-one years together and I still fancy the pants off him.’
The couple – who live in a £7 million mansion in Surrey with their two daughters, Lexi, 18, and Hollie, 12 –met in Los Angeles in 2003 but only started dating a year later after reuniting during London Fashion Week.
Their 2008 star-studded wedding reception was held at exclusive private members’ club Babington House in Somerset, with guests including double Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne, Gavin And Stacey creator James Corden, singer Mick Hucknall and broadcaster Piers Morgan.
In 2019, Ms Holden said of her marriage: ‘Chris is very funny and errs on the side of lightness. We can make jokes out of any situation throughout the best and darkest times of our lives. ‘He’s rubbish at romance, but he’s there for the solid things – such as keeping my car clean and making sure that I relax. He’s a proper bloke who looks after me. I’m a strong, opinionated woman, but he helps steer the Mandy ship.’
Prior to meeting Chris, the presenter was married to TV presenter Les Dennis from 1995 to 2002.
Bentley gave us an up-close and personal look at its customization process—and now it will make the car we specified and let us drive it.
We’ve all been there. Bored at work, trying to kill a few hours before you get to go home, you pull up a car customization site to mess around on when your boss isn’t looking (hi, Erik!). But if you’re truly serious about customizing a car, you don’t do it on something as plebian as a screen. Ew. No, instead, you meet with a specialist in person. Most high-end automotive brands offer services like these, and for today’s story, Bentley invited us to meet with one of its Mulliner team members to see firsthand what a truly bespoke customization experience is like.
Going to Crewe, where Bentley is headquartered in the U.K., wasn’t an option, so it came to us. And it came packing cases full of exterior color swatches, interior veneer samples, and strips of leather upholstery in nearly every color you can think of. It felt a little bit like being unleashed in a candy shop, except at the end you get a car instead of a bag of jellybeans.
On its website, Bentley boasts a baseline of 101 exterior colors, though you can expand this list to include any color from the luxury marque’s past, as well as opt for bespoke paint-matched hues. Interior leather choices offer 22 primary colors, 11 secondary shades, six accent colors, and various contrast stitching and piping options. There are eight wood veneer options with multiple finishes, which can also be paint-matched to any interior leather or exterior paint color. There are, according to Bentley, “10s of billions” of combinations—and this is all before Mulliner gets involved.
See, Mulliner is who you call when a so-called off-the-rack Bentley won’t cut it. This is the team that works with you if you want, oh, a personalized 278,566-stitch motif hand-crafted across the upper seat backs and door panels. (Yes, it’s actually happened before.) The sky’s the limit as long as the car passes the appropriate safety and materials tests.
If you occupy this stratosphere, you lucky dog, Bentley will introduce you to someone like Georgia Gough, a Mulliner bespoke design consultant and one with a handy background in textiles. Gough brought her computer, which runs a super-advanced version of a Bentley customization tool. She can change minute details down to the type of stitching on the steering wheel.
