Guest blog: Brangelina and Asprey – a good idea?

Lauren Adriana

Another week, another celebrity turned jewellery designer. This latest offering, however, provides us with not just one superstar endorsement but two, via the newly creative force known to us as Brangelina. Yes, for those of you who have not yet heard, everyone’s favourite tempestuous child-rearing couple has teamed up with the thoroughly British luxury brand Asprey, to create a range of jewellery so middle of the road you wonder why they bothered.

Not that anyone is allowed to say anything nasty of course, as this partnership has been done with the intention of raising money for charity. Obviously. Heaven forbid it has anything to do with a seemingly lost and aged jewellery house trying to cash in on an increasingly celebrity-driven market, or a couple of actors whose ego-trip seems to know no limits.

As you will have probably gathered by now, there is a lot about this pairing that irritates me. Aside from the obvious gripe about Brad and Angelina not even being British (we don’t have any of our own celebrities?) and the rather more jarring issue of why they didn’t hire a celebrity designer (yes, they do exist) – there is something altogether more worrying going on.

All net proceeds from the jewellery will be donated to the charity Education Partnership for Children of Conflict (EPCC), which Jolie co-founded to raise money for educating child victims of war, conflict and natural disasters. It sounds simple enough, but am I the only one who thinks it a bit inappropriate to use an item of luxury jewellery designed to appeal to a wealthy minority as the best way of raising money? Plus, there are the ethnical issues of using jewellery in the first place. Even if the diamonds they use adhere to the Kimberley process, it doesn’t guarantee that those stones, gold, or indeed any of the other materials used are not contributing to such atrocities as child labour, exploitation, or damaging the environment. In many ways jewellery is the worst thing they could have chosen.

I want to believe that Brangelina and Asprey only had the charity in mind when they agreed to this, but the cynic in me says otherwise. It smacks of a badly thought out publicity stunt with a bit of altruism thrown in afterwards. The collection was dreamt up by a company that didn’t understand the aims of the charity, and two people who have no knowledge of the issues within the jewellery industry.

I am all for celebrities raising money for charity, and I understand companies are always happy to jump on this. However, I feel it’s time we thought a bit more about the type of products that represent a cause, and the sort of celebrity used to endorse it.