This episode is brought to you by Fully Gemstones.

She's covered with diamonds, and her diamonds are gifts from men, so they represent male interests, so they up her stock.

The more diamonds she wears, the more evidence of her sexual appeal. And the sense that

men in that film are, they're kind of dopey and unreliable. But the diamonds are not unreliable.

The diamonds will be there when the men are gone. I'm Carol Horton, the voice of jewelry.

Welcome to If Jewels Could Talk.

I'm an author and broadcaster and the woman who initiated the role of jewelry editor at magazines like Tatler and Vogue.

This is a podcast for everyone, for people who do like jewelry, for people who don't realize they like jewelry,

and anyone intrigued by fascinating facts, new ideas and forgotten histories.

So join me as I tell sparkly tales and meet all sorts of people,

delving into four centuries of jewellery culture,

and investigate what's happening now.

Music and investigate what's happening now. This week, the Guardian newspaper ran a double-page spread

on how the red carpet was ruined and lost its mystique.

They said that the red carpet and everyone on it is but a bauble on the tree of self-congratulation.

Well, we're interested in the actual bauble's.

And this week, we want to go back and look at how it all started,

how the red carpet is there and how we can admire it and how the Oscars began in 1929.

But of course, it didn't become a public event until the 1940s. Now there was a

golden age and Hollywood, let's face it, has always loved diamonds. So we're going to look at that

today. And I'm really delighted to welcome Morris Spiegel, who is a professor at Columbia University,

who lectures in literature and film.

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