Last week Mallory was arrested for boosting nearly $100k worth of jewelry belonging to clients of the PR firm where she used to work. Daily Intel posited that hey, maybe she was the victim of mean girls at her job. Those mean girls must be really mean, and also well connected in law enforcement, because now Mallory's also charged with stealing $13,000 worth of clothes from Bergdorf Goodman when she worked in PR for them two years ago.

The names of all the designers of things that she's accused of stealing do show up in the news stories. But that's probably not so much "devious fashion PR girls wiping out an enemy and getting client media placement in one fell swoop" as it is "in the police report." We're guessing!

In any case PR people are criminals and swag is poison.

Montilla, a University of Central Florida grad, worked in PR for Bergdorf Goodman before getting a job at fashion-and-jewelry specialist Whisper two years ago. Being around all those fancy trinkets drove her stone cold crazy. (Not quite Lindsay Lohan crazy, but close). Her job was to make sure that jewelry on loan from designers made it to magazines for photo shoots, and back. The Post reports that she took advantage of this position to launch this crafty criminal scheme:

But law-enforcement sources say that instead of shipping the jewelry via a bonded courier to the magazines, she simply kept it.

Clever. But not foolproof. Eventually her bosses were like, "Hey, where is that $97,000 worth of jewelry that should be in our company safe but is not in our company safe?" Then, using detective tactics, they traced it to the girl who was supposed to be putting the jewelry in the safe but was not: Mallory Montilla.

It's just more proof that journalists and flacks should have to pass some kind of test before being allowed to be around swag. Leave them alone in a room for an hour with a cookie. If they eat it—no swag license.
[Pics: Stylecaster, Facebook]

The WSJ finds that the comically oversized pendant industry may be in peril:

"A lot of these rappers simply don't have the money for real stuff anymore," says Jason Arasheben, who crafts custom jewelry for wealthy clientele, including Saudi royals and Hollywood movie stars, at his California boutique called Jason of Beverly Hills. "It's to the point where they are wearing imitation jewelry, and that's ridiculous."

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Consider what's at stake here: we would lose the opportunity to idly play "Who has the most idiotic chain?" (Answer: Rick Ross, pictured, with himself as a pendant). Luckily for rappers, there is a template to follow in this situation. Country music has known how to combine flashy style and low cash for decades. Meet the future of hip hop fashion totems:


The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

[WSJ. Related: Since when did the WSJ start hiring reporters who can casually use hip hop slang in stories and sound competent, rather than sounding humorously stiff like, you know, WSJ reporters trying to use hip hop slang in stories? WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO YO?]

We're going out on a limb a little bit here in order to project our voice further unto the countryside as we shout that the idea that everybody would buy diamond jewelry as they get poorer because it's such a great gift and investment was incredibly stupid from the beginning. It doesn't look like De Beers had a blockbuster holiday season, and we know their competition didn't: "Tiffany & Co.'s fiscal fourth-quarter net income dropped 76% on restructuring costs and plunging sales."

It's because people don't have money, you see.

Even models can't afford diamonds these days. America's last luxury item is deodorant.

She wasn't as loopy as past performances on her previous TV home QVC, but she definitely had her slurred-speech moments.

This loosely-connected group of a couple hundred hardened criminals from the former Yugoslavia are now vying with the Somali Pirates for the public's hearts! They first made a big splash with their daring smash-and-grab robbery of Harry Winston in Paris earlier this month, where they made off with $100 million in jewels. Some of them dressed up like ladies and everything—why this is just like Ocean's 11!

The heist-movie-come-to-life element meant the authorities just had to dub them the "Pink Panthers," which almost guarantees each and every last guy a book deal, should he so desire.

Defense lawyers for some thieves who have been arrested insist that the name Pink Panthers is an invention of drama-loving law enforcement authorities. But investigators say there are about 200 members in the group — linked by village and blood — and they blame the group for scooping up jewels worth more than $132 million in bold robberies in Dubai, Switzerland, Japan, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Monaco. They live all over Europe, with some working in mundane jobs as hospital cleaners, waiting to be summoned for the next discount flight to a foreign capital, they said.

And that Dubai robbery, where they drove an Audi full speed into the front window of a jewelry store? It's a Youtube hit. How modern!

Watch out, Somali pirates: the media's found another gang of ruthless, plundering international criminals to crush on. And these guys have jewelry too! [NYT]

1. The setup—Say, for argument's sake, that Obama did order an expensive, custom-made ring to thank his wife for her help in the campaign. Would the chosen designer of that ring run out and immediately tell the press all about it? Not just the press, but the Daily Mail, a sleazeball London tabloid? No, because that designer would subsequently be destroyed by Barack Obama, the president of the US.

2. The story itself—What's the sourcing for this big story? Did Obama sheepishly acknowledge his gift with a smile once it broke? No. The sole source is a "spokesman" for the "designer" of the ring. Who also gave this ridonkulous quote:

'For obvious privacy reasons I cannot reveal the cost of the ring but bearing in mind it is made from rhodium or black gold and encrusted with diamonds you can be sure it will cost thousands of pounds.'

Mmm hmm. Classy. It's also painfully clear that the story is filled out by fun facts about rhodium pulled off some press release. Did you know that "rhodium was chosen as the material for the disc presented to Beatle Paul McCartney for being history's all-time best-selling songwriter and recording artist"? Barack Obama obviously did, which is why he insisted on ordering this here ring!

3. The designer—Supposedly Obama has ordered this ring to be specially made by Giovanni Bosco, an "A-list" Italian designer. Really? If he's so A-list, why has his name never—never!—appeared in Nexis, the database of all things media? If he's so A-list, why does his website look so D-list? And why does the "Press" section seem to be full mostly of his own ads? Decidedly non-Presidential.

So the worldwide media has bitten big-time on a story that was almost certainly planted by this jewelry designer himself, or a very enterprising flack. And everybody wins ("everybody" meaning "Right wing media outlets" and "Giovanni Bosco")! Good show, Giovanni Bosco. Thanks to all this press you will probably be able to sell some rings that are real. [Pic via]

[UPDATE: And the Obama camp just denied it.]

[UPDATE 2, via Politico: Tommy Christopher at AOL got a head-scratching statement from the spokesman for the jeweler in question, who also denies the story as reported:

I regret to inform you that because of reports so wrong and clearly different from the reality of our statements, we decided to not issue statement on this matter.

Unfortunately, we were negatively affected by read on national and foreign media news stories that have no basement[sic], and in excess of the objective reality.

I inform you that we have no intention to disseminate more information about this story.

Notable: some of these items were taken from the storage locker that also allegedly held a stash of nude photos of Hathaway. None of which have leaked yet.

[TSG]

Simmons Jewelry

Jacob the Jeweler:

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Sometime soon, somewhere in the country, an aspiring groom will go down on bended knee, present a ribboned blue box to his sweetheart and watch as she beholds the yellow diamond ring on which he spent $10,000.

And unless his fianc e has a highly refined sense of irony, somewhere in that gentleman's mind he'll be hoping she doesn't ask where he got it.

But if she does have a highly refined sense of irony? Whoa, Nelly. She'll just love it. High-low! Trashy chic!

And we're sure your Williamsburg gal's Park Avenue parents will love you for it, too.

Where Is Wal-Mart's Fancy Stuff? Try Online [NYT]