You couldn’t have missed Benny Blanco’s wedding bling. Here’s the jeweller

Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco got married on the weekend. And our eyes are out on stalks. Not because they got married. But because the groom wore some serious ice.

Blanco, the award-winning music producer, posted an Instagram picture showing off the couple’s wedding rings. But what everyone’s eye was drawn to (we are sure) was the gorgeous all-diamond watch and matching bracelet.

First spotted by Instagram’s favourite gem girl Julia Chafe, this stack is a one-of-one Boutique watch made by independent American watchmaker Jacob & Co, just for Blanco.

Staying true to the collection’s ethos of putting ‘opulent diamonds’ front and centre, this watch is loaded with 26 carats of Ashoka-cut diamonds, while the bracelet is set with 29.03 carats of emerald-cut diamonds. The brand also customised Blanco’s wedding ring—an 18-carat gold band with the couple’s wedding date engraved on the inner rim. They sit next to a pavé-set round ruby and an aquamarine, the couple’s birthstones.

Eagle-eyed watch fans would have noticed that it’s not dissimilar to a piece worn by Suki Waterhouse earlier this year. On the first Monday in May, Waterhouse arrived on the Met Gala blue carpet wearing her version of the Boutique watch with a Jacob & Co tennis bracelet and custom Michael Kors dress.

And then there is a version of the watch that can be worn as a necklace as well. Watch influencer Georgia Benjamin tried it on at Watches & Wonders in Geneva last year.

Jewel of the watch world

Launched by jeweller Jacob Arabo in New York’s Diamond District in 1986, Jacob & Co has strong pop-cultural roots. Arabo was apparently ‘discovered’ by rap legend The Notorious B.I.G., for whom he made big diamond jewellery. The rapper also gave him the nickname ‘Jacob the Jeweller’—a moniker that has appeared in several rap songs over the years and earned him a reference in the 2004 videogame Def Jam: Fight for NY, where players can collect cash to buy jewellery from him.

Since then, Jacob & Co has supplied eye-popping jewellery and watches to everyone from Jay-Z to JLo.

At first

The first watch Arabo created was the Five Time Zone watch in 2002. It was inspired by a two-time-zone watch his father gave him at 13. A unisex piece, the Five Time Zone can be customised with bright, bold colours or soft pastels, gold-plated, and trimmed with diamonds on the bezel or all over. It features four sub-dials telling the time in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Paris. One of the first people to wear the watch was Naomi Campbell for Elle magazine. It was also the watch Jay-Z chose to wear to his very significant “retirement” concert in 2003.

Jacob & Co’s bold, bedazzled watches are the perfect complement to the even bolder, multicoloured diamond jewellery Arabo created for cultural icons, including BAPE’s Nigo and Pharrell Williams. With these glittering tools, he created a new market and changed the way men view (and wear) jewellery.

Collection notes

Noteworthy collections include the magical Astronomia watches, which feature 3D elements in a raised-dial case. The India edition of the Astronomia Art collection features hand-engraved miniatures of the Taj Mahal, the Lotus Temple, India Gate, and the Qutub Minar.

Then there’s the needs-its-own-security Billionaire collection of thick-strap, diamond-set watches—a favourite with DJ Khaled. The Timeless Treasure watch from this collection features 482 yellow diamonds weighing 216.9 carats, which were acquired over three and a half years. The brand’s website mentions that Jacob & Co consumed almost the entire supply of yellow diamonds available in the world at the time.

And we circle back to the more demure Boutique collection of watches, which had its own cultural moment when Rihanna wore a custom 70-carat anklet watch to the Las Vegas Grand Prix in 2023.

Benny Blanco has provided another one this year.

Jacob & Co is available through Ethos Watches in India