BOAT LIFEWWW.BOATINTERNATIONAL.COM MAY 2017Imagine this in Richard Burton’s
deep Welsh brogue: “I don’t think
there’s a man or woman on earth
who would not be seduced by
the pure narcissism shamelessly
flaunted on this boat.” The actor was
talking, of course, about Aristotle
Onassis’s superyacht Christina, and
among those caught in its heady
glare was his on-off wife Elizabeth
Taylor, seen here on board the yacht’s
tender in the early 1970s.
Onassis was well aware of his
boat’s charms, quipping smartly in
response to Burton: “I have found
that to be so.” He was also fond of
telling female guests sitting on the
yacht’s bar stools – covered in the
foreskins of minke whales – that
they were sitting “on the largest
penis in the world!”
A bit of color was lost when
Onassis died in 1975, aged just 69,
not long after this photo was taken.
We’re left to imagine what it was like
on board as he welcomed a stream
of stars, princes, kings and sultans
to the famous 325 foot yacht,
which remains one of the biggest
in the world. As a long-time friend
of the shipping magnate, Taylor
was a regular guest. She would be
photographed on board, glamorous
as ever, dripping in diamonds and
always having a good time.
Following Onassis’s death, his
yacht was left to decay, until she
was eventually bought in 1998 and
refitted extensively. Now called
Christina O, she’s available for charter
at €560,000 a week with Morley
Yachts, for your own slice of the good
life led by the likes of Taylor, Burton,
Monroe and Onassis.The story
behind
the picture
Spiro in his
London office.
Below: titanium
wire and emerald
cuff bracelet and
earringsArticulated
butterfly
ring, above,
and emerald
drop earrings
and opening
earrings, top. All
pieces POA,
glennspiro.comOften described as “one of jewelry’s best kept secrets,”
Glenn Spiro has been handling some of the planet’s
most extraordinary gemstones for over a quarter of a
century, creating unique pieces for private clients and,
anonymously, for international high jewelry houses.
Trained as a master jeweler at Cartier and Christie’s,
Spiro is one of a handful of dealers worldwide who
trade in the rarest and most beautiful gems.
Word of mouth has long been Spiro’s chief marketing
tool and his business is very discreet. Clients contact
him directly. We meet at Lauren Santo Domingo’s
Moda Operandi fashion salon, located in a chic
brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper East side, where he
is holding private appointments. Rather than following
the traditional route of building a brand name and
opening stores, Spiro prefers to create one unique piece
at a time – around 200 a year – in his Geneva workshop.Charming and chatty, Spiro clearly loves what he
does and cheerfully admits to having a “great life.” But
he is happiest, he tells me, when cruising in the
Mediterranean on his wooden boat, Penelope, with “just
me, my family and the ocean.” A love of the sea leads
him to favor Zambian emeralds, he says, because they
have undertones of blue, which gives them a
mesmerizing color, reminiscent of the ocean.
Spiro has not striven to create a signature style, and
his designs range from abstract and modern to
intricate and ornate. Each piece stands alone. For him
“the stone dictates the jewelry.” Expanding on this
theme, he continues: “Most of our job is done for us.
We just put the stones in the right places. If they don’t
look great, we stop, and put them back in the tray until
we find the place they fit properly.”
I ask him about the demands of the modern
consumer. His clients have become “very discerning,”
he says. Above all, “they want to be different. They don’t
just want to walk into a shop
to buy a brand. They want
more than that.”
Spiro has a talent for the
unpredictable. For example,
a large Colombian emerald is
set in an earring with hinged
pavé diamond petals that
open to reveal the stone;
another emerald is the
centerpiece of an articulated
butterfly ring, with bejeweled
wings that flap with the
movement of your finger.
Spiro says that he enjoys
working with emeralds
because of the intensity of
their color and the romance
that surrounds them.“I
believe the first ones were
discovered over 4,000 years
ago,” he says. “They have
since been adored by
Cleopatra and Angelina Jolie
alike. It’s very hard to get a
flawless emerald but it’s the
character and inclusions
within them that make them
so alluring. Like people, no
two are ever the same.” BRock star
For Glenn Spiro, it’s all about the stones.
Harriet Mays Powell meets the bespoke
jeweler who plays on the biggest stageMORE
NAUTICAL
JEWELS
boatinternational.
com/sea-inspired-
jewelsBelow: Spiro
keeps a classic
Colombo
Romance 22 in
the MedMAY 2017Spiro says he is
happiest when
around the ocean
with his family,
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