The Experts of Luxurious Taste adorned Cipriani 42nd Street for the Jewelry Information Center’s Annual Gem Awards, which honor excellent journalistic coverage of the fine jewelry and watch industries, marketing and promotion, and lifetime achievement and artistic inspiration. Inside Edition’s Deborah Norville sparkled as the evening’s emcee, presenting the multi-faceted Sybil and David Yurman of the eponymous boutique (Yurman Designs) with an award for their Lifetime Achievement. Sybil, a painter, and David, a sculptor, together merged their interpretations of art, fashion, and fine jewelry into a unique design concept.

Former U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright presented Cartier with an award for their “decades of brand-building among consumers and the industry,” accepted by Prez and CEO Stanislas de Quercize. And jewelry designers Roberto Faraone Mennella and Amedeo Scognamiglio presented an excellence in media award to W Accessories Director Carmen Borgonovo.

Jewel aficionados delighting in the fanfare included London Jewelers’ Mark and Candy Udell, Graff’s Prez Henri Barguirdjian, Tiffany & Co.’s Linda Buckley, Steve Shonebarger of Bulgari, Dimodolo’s Benny Shabtai, Terri Eagle of Yurman, Gemological Institute of America Chairman Ralph Destino, Tom Florio, Julie Lund, Heather Poland, and Christine Cachot Williams.

The elegant space twinkled with the ladies flaunting their star jewels, Madeleine Albright being among the most forthright (some things never change!). She arrived wearing a 1930 antique silver-and-diamond panther pin lent to her by Cartier. “Stanislas told me this panther is a symbol of female power: endearing and yet you have to be a little careful of it,” said Albright, like a true diplomat. The owner of a vast pin collection, she intrigued us with tales of how her jewels had actually assisted in her dealings in foreign affairs! Apparently, she once audaciously wore a small pin that looked like part of a ground-based antimissile system when she met with the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Igor S. Ivanov; when he noticed it, he asked, “Is that one of your interceptors?” Ms. Albright shot back, ”We know how to make them really small, so negotiate!” Another precious stone moment: After Saddam Hussein called her a snake, Albright wore an antique pin in the shape of a coiled snake while debating a resolution on Iraq before the U.N. “It got to be a fun game,” she recalled. “Balloons and butterflies when I was feeling great. A spider when I was feeling devious. Bees when I wanted to sting somebody.” Why was this fish out of water attending the Gem Awards? “I love fun events that celebrate happy things at a time when life is tough,” she simply stated .... And so it was, at this exquisite gem of a party!