Ben Affleck with Jennifer Lopez who is wearing Foundrae jewelry. Photo via Instagram @jlo Images by Ana Carballosa @lacarba
Celebrity
The Jewels Ben Gave Jennifer for Her Birthday
JLo wore the Foundrae pieces when she made the relationship Instagram official
July 25, 2021—“I mean, if you’re going to Instagram official do it like @jlo” wrote the star’s longtime friend, producer Elaine Goldsmith Thomas, in the comments of the now perhaps most famous Instagram official relationship reveal ever.
In a gallery of images posted on her 52nd birthday Jennifer Lopez wore a Valentino bikini perfectly accessorized with a Nick Fouquet hat, vintage wrap, platforms and layers of gold jewels. The last image where she is kissing Ben Affleck was, as the saying goes, the money shot. Bennifer are back!
The world went wild for the confirmation of the recoupling, not to mention how good both the middle-aged stars looked. Scratch that. How hot Ben and Jen looked on a yacht in the middle of who knows where broke the internet.
Meanwhile, over here in Jewelryland, I was fully focused on JLo’s gold jewels. I had never seen her in the designs before and I was quite sure I knew where they came from. The chunky link chain, the multiple charms, the key—all the elements added up to Foundrae, a stunning collection of charms and chains that has been beloved by countless celebrities for years.
I reached out to Foundrae’s Creative Director and Co-Founder, Beth Bugdaycay, to confirm what I knew to be true. She said the jewels were in fact from the Foundrae collection. “Ben wanted to get something really special for her birthday,” explains Beth. “He wanted to put together a meaningful story.”
A symbolic jewelry narrative is what the Foundrae collection is all about. The symbols range from hearts to charms for your internal compass, karma, passion and many more.
So, what did Ben want to say with the jewels? Let’s analyze the pieces he purchased for Jennifer’s birthday gift and find out.
At the center of the 18K gold and diamond Love, Golden Key is a Bowden’s Knot, a heraldic motif symbolizing the connectivity of true love. According to the description on Foundrae, the star is an emblem of energy and divine guidance and the horseshoe is a symbol of a shield of protection.
Jennifer is wearing The Golden Key on Foundrae’s 36” Sister Hook 18K gold Heavy Belcher Chain Necklace.
Foundrae’s Oversized Mixed Clip Chain is the other necklace Jennifer is wearing. The handcrafted 18K gold design is 18-inches long and has three annex links for charms.
The center charm on the chain is a 18K gold handcrafted Oversized Heart Love Token. According to the Foundrae website, the charm “celebrates the seven classic types of love as defined thousands of years ago: Eros–romantic love, Philia–friendship, Agape–universal love, Storge–love between parent and child, Ludus–playful love, Pragma–love founded on duty & reason, Philautia–self-love.”
Unlike the image above of the Heart Token, Jennifer’s doesn’t have any diamond letters. Instead, she has a white gold and diamond “J” from Foundrae resting on top of the heart.
The 18K gold and diamond charm on one side of the Heart Token is Foundrae’s Protection Medallion. According to the Foundrae website, “The Scarab at the center is meant to shield the wearer, not from malevolent outside sources, but from our own negative thoughts. The ones that say, you can’t or something similar and prevent us from using our energy to build more productive and positive aspects of our lives.”
On the other side of the Heart Token is a Resilience Medallion. The 18K gold piece has a blossom and thorn motif.
The Foundrae website says about the design, “Wild, abundant, and untamed, the blossoms are fed with passion and continue to bloom, even in darkness, against adversity. But we can’t separate the flower from its thorn. The Thorn is the risk we assume for something we love, for living life fully without reserve.”
It’s as though this description could have been written for the couple’s romance.
“The way Ben put the necklace together is really meaningful,” explains Beth. “He didn’t just get her the biggest diamond he could find, he wanted to say something about their relationship.” Indeed, the jewels say as much about his feelings on the relationship as JLo did when she showed the world their love was officially back on.
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