For most people, an engagement ring is something you actively aim to only have one of. For Victoria Beckham, this was not the case. With Posh Spice, it was always more of a “the more, the merrier,” situation.
Over the course of her marriage to David Beckham, which has lasted over 24 years, the pop star has not one, not two, but 15 total engagement rings. And they’re not your standard issue engagement rings either - according to Neil Dutta at Angelic Diamonds, they total up to £30,678,000 in value.
It all began in 1998, when Becks popped the question with a marquise cut diamond set on a yellow gold band, which was, according Alexandra Morris Robson, jewellery designer and founder of Augustine Jewels, already pretty ahead of the trend. “For most people, 20 years ago, platinum gold was in. And the trend now is much more towards yellow or white gold.”
Then, after their 1999 wedding, Victoria switched to a platinum eternity ring, true to the trends of the time. Not for long, though, as Victoria had moved on from her eternity band by 2003, when she was spotted wearing a hefty emerald cut diamond with side baguettes.
Then came a particularly pricey pink champagne halo diamond ring, worth an estimated $1.1million (£880,000) at the time. Today, Robson estimates that this would be one of Victoria’s most sought after: “Pink diamonds are incredibly rare and sought after, especially if their certificate says natural - they have gone up in value enormously.”
This was the first of Victoria’s coloured stones. Over the years she’s sported pink and yellow diamonds, alongside rubies, emeralds and even a sapphire stone on her engagement finger. According to Neil Dutta at Angelic Diamonds, this is her largest and most expensive gem, with an estimated £4.4 million price tag.
During the 2000s, when Posh first started exhibiting her regular ring trade-ups, engagement ring upgrades were very uncommon. “This wasn’t a thing at all 20 years ago,” Robson explains, “you had your engagement ring for life.”
But, like with many things, VB was ahead of the curve. “We’re seeing it a lot in our business now, with people changing and upgrading their rings. There’s a trend towards upgrading - or even just updating - more generally.”
The call for these updates can be numerous: “One is that people generally start out married life with a smaller stone, and as their marriage progresses, they want something bigger. Another is that people’s hands get bigger as they age.”
Most commonly, Robson sees people trading up by two or three times the price of the original ring. “So someone who got married with a £10,000 ring is now looking for a £30,000 ring, or someone who married with a £30,000 ring is now looking for a £90,000 ring, and so on.”
Robson notes that she’s also seen it happen with couples where something “goes wrong,” as she delicately puts it, “and then they reaffirm their vows.”
This process of ridding yourself of a ring with bad memories has also led to a recent trend of “divorce rings”, where newly divorced women get their engagement rings “reinvented” in some way. “So we’re taking that stone and turning it into a really fun, fabulous cocktail ring,” Robson explains, “and we’ve seen people come in miserable and leave absolutely elated because of that new lease of life. It’s reinvention, in divorce and in marriages. It’s a new chapter.”
