Mariah Carey’s Michael Jackson Video Vanguard honour at the MTV Video Music Awards was always going to be a spectacle. But for many Lebanese viewers, one detail stood out: the singer accepted the award wearing an elaborate diamond set created by Levuma, a high-jewellery house with Lebanese roots.
The look — a cascading diamond necklace paired with matching earrings and ring — reportedly featured hundreds of carats of stones and was valued in the multi-million-dollar range. For Levuma’s Lebanese founder and design team, the placement was a pinnacle moment: not just a red-carpet win, but a global advertisement for the country’s long-standing expertise in fine jewellery and stone-setting.
Carey’s choice came on a night loaded with symbolism. The Vanguard Award celebrates an artist’s career-long impact on music videos and pop culture; pairing that recognition with a Lebanese-designed set essentially wove the brand’s aesthetic into the visual story of her legacy performance. As clips and photos travelled across platforms, from fashion magazines to fan accounts, the provenance of the pieces became part of the conversation.
For Lebanon’s jewellery sector — which has quietly serviced Gulf and European elites for decades — the moment is more than a celebrity shout-out. It reinforces a narrative of resilience and sophistication at a time when the country is battling economic collapse and brain drain. Young designers and artisans see in Levuma’s trajectory proof that a Beirut-born vision can command international attention without losing its regional identity.
In an era when red carpets double as strategic billboards, Mariah Carey’s Vanguard appearance underlines how cultural capital flows both ways: global icons gain distinctive looks, while Lebanese creators gain a worldwide showcase — and a new generation of clients who now know their name.
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