Some people flex with a new phone or a limited edition pair of trainers. But, throughout history, the seriously rich and powerful have taken flexing to a completely different level. Think enormous diamonds, giant beds, hand-knotted masterpieces and furniture designed to make everyone entering the room immediately understand who was important. Here are some V&A objects whose rarity, history, craftsmanship or seriously luxurious materials put them firmly in priceless flex territory!
My boyfriend designed me a crown…
Forget getting flowers on your anniversary! Prince Albert designed this sapphire and diamond coronet for Queen Victoria in 1840, the year they got married. Jeweller Joseph Kitching made it for her and it became her most treasured item. When Prince Albert died in 1866, Queen Victoria refused to wear her official crown and only had the coronet beside her, as a deeply personal symbol of her love and grief for her late husband.
Diamonds are forever…
Imagine turning up wearing a necklace made from 20 enormous diamonds, then adding matching diamond earrings because apparently the necklace wasn’t doing enough! The Sutherland Diamonds probably originated from the famous Golconda mines in India, which produced some of the world’s most celebrated historic diamonds. The biggest stone in the necklace alone weighs around 15 carats – MEGA! The set has also been worn at several British coronations and even has an alleged connection to the infamous diamond necklace scandal that helped destroy Marie Antoinette’s reputation, although that part of the story has never been proven.
My floor is a masterpiece…
The Ardabil Carpet was made in Iran in 1539–40 and is the oldest dated carpet in the world. Forget popping to IKEA – this enormous carpet may have taken a team of up to ten highly skilled weavers years to complete, with around 5,300 knots in every 10 square centimetres. When the V&A bought it in 1893, famous designer William Morris described it as being of “singular perfection”.
My bed needs it’s own postcode…
Why buy a king-size bed when you could apparently sleep eight people in one? Made around 1590, the Great Bed of Ware is more than three metres wide and became so famous that Shakespeare referenced it in Twelfth Night. People even carved their names and stuck wax seals onto it to prove they’d slept there. Basically, it had user reviews before the internet existed. Would you sleep on it?
My dog has ruby eyes!
Imagine loving your dog so much that a normal portrait simply wouldn’t do. Around 1831, the Earl of Dudley commissioned sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt to create a life-size monument to his Newfoundland, Bashaw. And Bashaw had to travel to London to sit for the artist around 50 times! Then it gets even more extra. Under Bashaw’s paw is a bronze snake with ruby eyes, because apparently even the family dog needed to look like a total flex.
