How do stars feel when the outfit, jewelry and all the trinkets they wear to an event are priced item-by-item under the guise of a style feature?
There are websites that do that without asking permission from the star involved. The websites simply reproduce the star’s photo from their Instagram and do their own Internet search on the prices of the clothes and accessories the stars grandly show off in one event or another.
They don’t have to bother the stars about the cost since most of the time the stars have a partnership with a stylist, who borrows all those outfits and jewelry from various establishments. It’s possible that some showbiz idols don’t even know the cost of the jewelry they wear to an event.
The stars are practically priced like a commodity as if they were the ones for sale! No one seems to have complained aloud or on their social media about the treatment. We have a feeling some may have quietly complained to that website about the style feature about them using an Instagram photo of theirs with each piece of jewelry they wear priced in the write-up.
It may actually be clever for stars to wear borrowed jewelry because they would look incredibly wealthy for one night without spending a single peso for their stunning look.
Not all styling sections of websites and publications do this blunt pricing of each item the star showed off adorning their maximally or minimally clothed bodies. Most just mention the seller or distributor of each of the soaring-priced elements of the stars’ “Outfit of the Day.” The addresses of the main shops of the jewelers are clearly stated. The readers can check out the items in those shops — if they look like they can afford it. They could be turned away for looking not moneyed enough.
The country’s most famous fashionista is Heart Evangelista. Her Instagram pictorials never ever say she owns all that she is wearing, though everyone knows she is wealthy and so is her senator husband who has just gifted her on her 39th birthday on 14 February a very rare diamond ring.
Gazers of the photos who read the accompanying story on the prices of each item easily get the idea that those stars do not own most of the items they wore as some of them are priced close to half-a-million to about two or three million pesos. It may be a watch, a bracelet, a necklace, or eye-catching bling-bling. Daniel Padilla owns cars that cost several millions of pesos each, but he is not known (yet) to own bling he paid for.
An actor who goes around in flashy chokers, bracelets and bling-blings is James Reid. At the advanced special screening of Liza Soberano’s Hollywood film Liza Frankenstein, Reid was wearing more accessories than girlfriend Issa Pressman. He even had a black leather handbag which he patiently held while talking with the press. They may not be cheap body adornments because we noticed that some tall well-bodied guys were always hovering around the journos and content makers crowding Reid for interviews.
A female actor, known for requiring corporate clients who want to invite her to an event to buy her a dress or a gown from an establishment of her choice, was recently featured in the style section of a website in an outfit and accessories that costs around P4 million! The photo was just reproduced from her Instagram with an acknowledgement from the website. The curator of her accessories, shoes and bag was named — and it’s the curator that borrowed all those.
Do you know that as soon as the pictorial or the event is done, the bejeweled stars are tightly escorted to a secured suite nearby so they can remove and turn over to the jewelry sellers all that was lent to them for the occasion? They cannot bring home any of the jewelry or the outfit unless they pay for them through a thoroughly verified credit card. Or in cash drawn from a fully-loaded ATM.
Actually, when stars turn up bejeweled in a ball or prom or any similar event, those jewelry are most likely just loaned to them and the total price of those accessories easily add up to several millions.
A lady film producer whose family owns a prestigious jewelry company revealed all of this to us one night. She said that in one ball, a major star wore jewelry worth P3 million.
The star knew beforehand that right after all the pictorials for that event, she will be escorted by the jewelry company’s security to a suite within the building where she will be assisted by female staff trained to remove meticulously one at a time all the accessories and checked out against the list of those items to signify that they had all been returned.
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Taylor Swift seems to feel the Philippines cannot be a goldmine for her the way Japan, Australia and Singapore are. (The Thai Prime Minister, however, has just accused Singapore of offering a subsidy to Swift’s concert promoter A&E on the condition that Swift should not do a concert in any Southeast Asian country. Swift also declined to do a concert in Thailand.)
The entertainment idols who are not leery about doing shows and meet-ups in the Philippines are the Koreans. Looks like a solo actor or singer or a K-pop group turns up in the country every other week. Some ticketed shows are done at the Araneta Coliseum and some of those events are reported to be very well attended, nearly a full house!
Meanwhile, because Swift wouldn’t bother with us, our well-off stars and celebrities bother to fly to the nearest country where tickets are still available.
Andrea Brillantes flew to Japan. Kathryn Bernardo went to Australia and got together with Anne Curtis and Isabelle Daza. Bernardo mightily sang along with Swift when the latest world pop phenomenon broke into her “We Will Never Ever Get Back Together.” We all know to whom Bernardo addressed the message.
Some stars and celebrities will surely make it to Swift’s Singapore show. They can easily afford it.
Happily though, Pinoy stars and celebrities got together at the reunion concert of Rivermaya. Bernardo’s ex, Daniel Padilla, was among them. And so were the real-life couple Sarah Geronimo and Matteo Guidicelli.
Would sweethearts Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil watch Rivermaya if Soberano had been here? Gil must love everything now that has something to do with birds.
Soberano was a no-show at the premiere of Gil’s comeback film I Am Not Big Bird though she seems to have turned up here on 13 February for a whirlwind photo or video shoot for some establishments she endorses. Gil had no choice but to say he understands Soberano whom he claims to be his girlfriend still. Soberano does interviews in Hollywood without ever mentioning Gil. Reporters out there may have never heard of Gil.
But Soberano is staying put in Los Angeles to keep pushing her luck for more film projects in Hollywood despite the reported un-impressive box office performance of Liza Frankenstein. After all, Soberano’s acting in the film was never faulted by any reports about the film’s poor box-office performance.