Red-Carpet Diamond Moments: Lisa Manobal, Elle Fanning Shine in High Jewellery

One piece can set the tone for an entire awards season. At the 83rd Golden Globe Awards in January 2026, two women arrived wearing jewellery that no one had seen before, and in doing so, gave the rest of the season something to measure itself against.

Lisa Manobal and the Bulgari Vimini: A World Premiere on the Wrist

Lisa Manobal, known the world over as a member of Blackpink, made history at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards as the first K-pop artist and the first Thai actor to ever present at the ceremony. But the moment the jewellery world noticed came before she ever reached the podium. The 28-year-old rapper premiered a never-before-seen Bulgari high jewellery necklace from the brand's upcoming Vimini collection, worn against a striking black Jacquemus gown, the sheer bodice leaving every woven detail of the piece fully visible.

The "Eternal Vimini" choker is an intricate piece featuring five layers that elegantly encased her neck, fashioned from yellow gold accented with dazzling diamonds and a striking black diamond-like carbon coating. The DLC (Diamond-Like Carbon) finish is not mere decoration: it is an industrial-grade treatment that gives the steel layers their deep, matte black appearance, sitting in deliberate, graphic contrast to the warmth of the yellow gold beneath. Her jewellery collection for the evening also included radiant-cut fancy vivid yellow diamond stud earrings in yellow gold, as well as a matching ring with a stunning coil wrap pattern.

Bulgari's reinterpretation pays homage to its 1942 Vimini bracelet, created amid World War II material shortages, while bringing a modern sensibility to the craft. The name "Vimini" means "wicker" in Italian, and the geometry holds up under scrutiny: each piece features flowing golden rhomboid elements, inspired both by industrial design and the Greco-Roman woven motifs that influenced the original bracelet. Bulgari creative director Lucia Silvestri has spoken about being "captivated by its timeless allure" and "fascinated by its rhythmic geometry and warm tones of gold." The Eternal collection includes five pieces, covering a necklace, bracelet, ring, and two earrings, each exploring distinct expressions of gold.

Manobal wore Bulgari not once but twice that night: she started out debuting the Vimini necklace from the house's Eternal collection, pairing the yellow gold and black DLC piece with a five-band ring set, and then put on a white-gold necklace with mother-of-pearl and onyx elements, along with a white-gold diamond ring and matching earrings. The double-change is itself a statement about her standing within the house. As a global ambassador, Manobal has now premiered two Bulgari collections on the red carpet in a single season. At the 2025 Emmys, Bulgari finished with a first-place finish in watches and jewellery, earning $2.1 million in Media Impact Value, with Manobal as the only star the house bejewelled for the evening. A necklace worn by someone with that kind of reach does not stay quietly in a press release.

Elle Fanning and Cartier: From the Pavocelle to a 1903 Heirloom

Elle Fanning is a Cartier ambassador, and this season she treated that relationship as an opportunity for genuine jewellery storytelling rather than simple product placement. The two pieces she wore across the awards season could not be more different in age or construction, yet both spoke the same design language: structured, diamond-led, architecturally considered.

At the Golden Globes, Fanning sparkled in a shimmering silver Gucci dress and a Cartier Pavocelle, part of the maison's En Équilibre high jewellery collection. The necklace is typically worn with a huge sapphire at the center, but Fanning opted for the diamond pendant instead. That choice reveals the piece's most compelling design feature. The Pavocelle is named after the Latin word "pavo" for peacock and "ocelle," meaning "eye" in French, referencing the eye-like pattern on a peacock's feathers. True to Cartier's tradition of transformable high jewellery, the main sapphire motif can be removed and worn as a brooch; once taken out, the Pavocelle transforms into a full-diamond creation, joined at the front by a pear-cut D IF 1.03-carat diamond pendant, with the gemstones set on platinum sculpted to create wave-like layers that evoke the sense of a peacock fanning its tail feathers. Traditionally, the necklace features a striking 58.08-carat oval sapphire from Sri Lanka at its centre. Fanning's decision to strip that stone away and wear the piece as pure diamond architecture was not simplification; it was a different kind of confidence.

Then came the Oscars. At the 2026 Academy Awards, Fanning, nominated for her role in "Sentimental Value," wore an antique Cartier Belle Époque necklace, circa 1903, which was one of the star jewels of the evening. The "Wisteria" necklace was originally two brooches, which could be worn as a tiara, and was reset into a necklace; it is comprised of round old-cut diamonds. The piece is over 120 years old, and its provenance is inseparable from its beauty.

Woven throughout the bodice of her Givenchy gown and echoed in her Cartier jewellery was a wisteria motif inspired by her childhood home. "Growing up, my childhood home had a wisteria trellis that bloomed in the spring," Fanning explained. "I remember thinking it was the most beautiful thing when the petals would fall and create a lilac cloud on the ground." Fanning stepped onto the 2026 Oscars red carpet in a breathtaking strapless white gown designed by Sarah Burton for Givenchy, the floral embroidery and the archival Cartier necklace forming a single, coherent argument about memory, craft, and ornament.

Fanning serves as a Cartier ambassador and was nominated for her first Oscar for her supporting performance in Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value," a film that earned nine Oscar nominations in total, including Best Picture and Best Director. That biographical context matters for how we read the jewellery: this was not a stylist pulling archival pieces for visual impact alone. The 1903 necklace, once a tiara, once a pair of brooches, now worn flat against a wisteria-embroidered bodice at the Academy Awards, carried the weight of something genuinely chosen.

Taken together, these two women and their jewellers offered a reminder of what high jewellery is actually for: not to announce wealth, but to extend a story that starts in craft and ends on a human neck, under lights, in front of the world.