What's a necklace pendant to convey a message? This is exactly the way Spike Lee used to pay tribute to his great friend who passed away too soon, Prince, when the American filmmaker received his very first Academy Award (best mise on stage) for his latest film, "BlacKkKlansman".
When Prince left us in April 2016, Spike Lee threw an impromptu party. Hundreds of fans gather outside a house in Fort Greene from which Spike Lee played songs by the famous artist.
Nearly 3 years later, Spike Lee is once again paying tribute to Prince Rogers Nelson, bringing a friend he calls his brother back to center stage as he receives awards for his film BlacKkKlansman.
While walking the red carpet at the Academy Awards, Mr. Lee wore a custom-made men's necklace. It featured a pendant in the shape of Prince's symbol. The pendant is made of gold, diamond and opal. It was custom made by jeweller Amedeo Scognamiglio. To highlight it, the director wore an all-purple Ozwald Boateng suit (probably in homage to Purple Rain), as well as gold Air Jordans that we owe to Tinker Hatfield. The shoes were personally commissioned for Spike Lee by Michael Jordan himself.
"I had asked Ozwald to make the pants a little short so that we could see the Jordans, " the filmmaker said a few days before the Oscars, in a remark that also featured some profanity, and punctuated by enthusiastic peals of laughter. "I don't care what people wear. I won an oscar on the red carpet. Men, women, I don't care if they wear 30 cm heels. They won't take away the Jordans I'm going to wear. I will be as clean as a sterile compress. I'll be as sharp as a razor blade.»
Men's jewelry Scognamiglio, Spike Lee's favorites
M. Scognamiglio knew Mr. Lee about a year ago. A meeting that led to a friendship. Since then, it's not uncommon to see the American director wearing one of Scognamiglio's massive jewelry for men. He said: “With my partner, we like to create very massive pieces, men's jewelry that shows. We don't do lace. »
However, while working on Spike Lee's men's necklace, he worried for a while that the 18-karat gold pendant, decorated with diamonds and a 17-karat opal, might be too big. He then asked his friend's advice. The director's response was unequivocal: "do it bigger, do it bigger".
The meeting between Prince and Spike Lee
The first meeting between Prince and Spike Lee took place when the musician, impressed by the filmmaker's first film, "Nola Darling does as she pleases" (1986), invited him to Minnesota where he stood. They immediately understood each other. And even if they did not date closely, they remained close.
“Sometimes it could go 6 months, 8 months between conversations, but when we spoke to each other, it was like we spoke to each other yesterday,” Lee said. It is moreover a song of Prince which concludes his last film. According to Spike Lee, it was the spirit of his brother that allowed him to get his hands on an unreleased version of "Mary Don't You Weep" sung by Prince. She was found there by Troy Carter among thousands of disorganized cassettes left by the musician. The director claims that the discovery of this tape was guided by his friend.
" It's not an accident," he said. “Prince wanted this song to be in the movie. People can say I'm crazy, that I smoke crack, which I'm not. Or that I eat mushrooms, which is not the case either. I swear on my mom's head, he wanted that song in the movie. »