The name Imelda Marcos stands out as one of elegance and beauty, but also as one of unmatched extravagance, immodesty, and narcissism. People still talk about Imelda’s 2,700 pairs of shoes, her collection of art pieces by artists such as Michelangelo, Botticelli, and Canaletto, her expensive mink coats, gowns, and handbags, and the five-million-dollar shopping sprees she made in New York, Rome, and Copenhagen to amass these. Indeed, no other real-life symbol exists that better fits in with the description “dressed to impress.” In fact, the Wiktionary online dictionary defines the word Imeldific, coined after her name, as “characterized by ostentatious extravagance to a point of vulgarity.”

To this day, Imelda Marcos maintains an air of elegance around her, although much of her wealth, which was allegedly stolen from public funds, has already been seized or frozen pending further investigation and prosecution by the government of the Philippines. She often remarks that she is now poor, but small glimpses of her wealth still seem to exist. She once gave an interview at her residence on one of her recent birthdays where again she commented on her limited wealth. Few noticed, however, that despite what she was saying, a Picasso painting was hanging on her wall in the background behind her. Whenever people give her remarks on her beautiful jewelry, she often tells them that they are cheap copies that she gets for under $2.30 from the hawkers at Divisoria, the famous bargain goods market of downtown Manila. This raises the question that considering Imelda Marcos’s previous shows of wealth during the time that she was First Lady of the Philippines, her subsequent fall from glory, and her self-confessed and self-defended admittance of poverty, from a physical and material standpoint, does anyone need to spend a lot of money on jewelry, accessories, and clothes in order to look good?

I often ask, is there anything wrong with cheap jewelry? They look good and they look very expensive – qualities that you’d expect from pieces made by Cartier or Tiffany & Co. But aside from that, they’re also practical – they don’t break your bank, but allow you to look stunning. Many cheaper pieces of jewelry use Swarovski crystals in place of expensive natural gemstones. Swarovski crystals are glass crystals with distinctive cuts that allow them to closely mimic the qualities of natural gemstones. This makes them highly desirable, and yet relatively affordable. In fact, many Hollywood celebrities have admitted to using jewelry using Swarovski crystals instead of natural gemstones and this has sparked a trend that has made Swarovski crystals not only popular, but also very fashionable.

From this assessment we can see that chic jewelry doesn’t need to be expensive. If you can get a beautiful swan pendant with Swarovski crystals from a Chinese online shop and be complemented about it all the time, then what more good can the same swan pendant do if the crystals were diamonds? It’s true that you can keep the pendant for years as material wealth, but for the simple purpose of adding charm to your looks, the cheaper piece of jewelry will do the same exact thing without costing you a small fortune.

So, don’t worry too much about buying expensive jewelry if all you want it for is looks. If you’re buying expensive jewelry as an investment, then by all means, go ahead! But when practically is more important, there’s nothing wrong with settling for less that does more – and you’ll find that there is a wider selection of rings and earrings, bracelets and bangles, and brooches and pendants that will allow you to dress to impress without breaking your bank!