What is it with white culture and theft? Or rather, the white culture of theft. This is not a matter of grammatical correctness, but one of historical accuracy. I acknowledge the unfairness of making such a blanket statement. Yet, I unabashedly hope that the clickbait veneer of it fools you, because I am upset. You should be too. And no, I am not referring to any ongoing genocide or any brazen denial of sexual offence at a ginormous scale. No. I wouldn’t engage in such vituperation of what could only be conspiracy theories. Right? Right. I am an international student who knows her place in this country and shall, therefore, restrict herself to the most glaring concern of all — the curious case of Margot Robbie and the alleged “Elizabeth Taylor” necklace.
Now, let me preface this by saying that I am a huge Margot Robbie fangirl, which makes the disappointment I feel so much more profound. I loved her as Harley Quinn and as Barbie, although, granted, the latter had much to do with Greta Gerwig’s hilariously incisive writing. That said, the fact that LuckyChap Entertainment, Robbie’s production company, was one of the producers of the film “Barbie” undoubtedly lent her more credibility as an actor aware of the sociopolitical impact of her work. In the past, LuckyChap Entertainment has also produced critically-acclaimed films like “I, Tonya” (2017), “Promising Young Woman” (2020), and “Saltburn” (2023). So, imagine my disappointment when I, one morning, woke up to an Instagram feed filled with reels of Robbie extolling the “eternal love” signified by what she, and the western media, referred to as the “Elizabeth Taylor Necklace” she was wearing for the Los Angeles premier of “Wuthering Heights” (2026). Except, the Farsi inscription on the pendant was a dead giveaway of a huge chunk of history that everyone seemed to be seriously missing.
But first, for a quick rundown of Robbie’s outfit: styled by Andrew Mukamal, Robbie donned a custom-made Schiaparelli gown fresh off the runway from the spring 2026 couture show that made its recent debut in Paris. Unlike the original version of the dress, Robbie’s had a more Victorian-era finish with an onyx and scarlet red gradient on the petal skirt. As stunning as the outfit was, it was outshone by the jewelry — the iconic heart-shaped Taj Mahal diamond set in a Cartier necklace, last owned by Elizabeth Taylor. Herein lies the point of contention.
Notice how I framed the description of this pendant as being “last owned by Elizabeth Taylor,” suggesting a sequence of ownership that culminated in Taylor’s possession of it. This information was preceded by an emphasis on it being the Taj Mahal diamond. For those who may be unaware of what the Taj Mahal, is or which it may be an integral descriptor of this statement piece, I assure you, this is not a matter of me being finicky about sentence structure. This is me, an Indian woman, correcting the linguistic architecture of colonial theft masquerading as cultural appreciation. And here is why.
The Taj Mahal diamond is a heart-shaped table-cut diamond, likely from India’s Golconda mines, encrusted with rubies and other diamonds. The origins of this totem of history can be traced back to pre-colonial, 17th-century India. The Mughal Emperor Jahangir commissioned it for his wife Nur Jahan who, it is believed wielded the same, if not more, administrative power as her husband within the regime. How do we know this belonged to Nur Jahan? Well, because the Farsi inscription clearly visible on the pendant literally spells it out for us with the words “Nur Jahan Begum-e-Padshah” (Nur Jahan, Lady of the Emperor) along with the number 23 and the Hijri year 1037, corresponding to 1627-1628 A.D. It was a gift of love and devotion. The necklace was then passed down to Jahangir’s son, Emperor Shah Jahan, who then gifted it to his beloved wife Mumztaz Mahal. In case these names sound familiar to you, it’s because Shah Jahan famously built the Taj Mahal, deemed one of the seven wonders of the world, as a mausoleum in honor of Mumtaz Mahal, after she tragically succumbed to childbirth.
Fast forward to the twentieth century, and the necklace mysteriously appears with Cartier. The French luxury brand acquired the necklace in 1971. We don’t actually know how it got to Cartier because the provenance of this acquisition from Mughal India to Cartier is completely undocumented. This is the kind of undocumentation we should all be concerned about. Eventually, Cartier replaced the original silk cord of the necklace with a gold and ruby chain, reframing it to fit the Western aesthetic. Then in 1972, Richard Burton buys it and gifts it to Elizabeth Taylor for her fortieth birthday. After Taylor’s death, as part of a larger auction of Taylor’s belongings for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, the diamond was last sold to an anonymous buyer in 2011 for a staggering $8.8 million. This is how it came to be known as the “Elizabeth Taylor Necklace” and this was also how Margot Robbie referred to it during the premier, relegating years of legendary and eternal love to a pithy footnote.
We cannot undo the past, but we can start with acknowledging it at the very least.
However, this isn’t even remotely the first among Cartier’s insolent affronts to oppressed histories, given that it has built its massive empire on cultural appropriation. From replicas of 17th-century Mughal spectacles being worn by Pharell Williams with the claim of being custom-designed to a Tutti Frutti bracelet with colorful Mughal era gems selling at about $2 million, Cartier has constructed its legacy though taking “inspiration” from Islamic and Indian art for some of its most premium pieces. As an artist myself, I greatly value the legitimacy of inspiration, but also know how to distinguish it from claiming something as my own.
Having grown up in post-colonial India, seeing entire nations and still prevalent foreign monarchies continue to benefit from our stolen heritage, I have learnt to overlook the monetisation of colonial theft. However, the one transgression I am yet unable to wrap my mind around is Cartier’s near-habitual practice of endowing white celebrities with historic Indian pieces, while continuing to deny this privilege to desi celebrities. During the 2025 Met Gala, as reported by The New York Times, Cartier refused to loan the Patiala Necklace to Indian actor-singer Diljeet Dosanjh who was making his debut, citing the piece’s extreme fragility and its ensealment in a museum. However, during the 2022 Met Gala, Carter loaned a part of this very necklace to American YouTuber Emma Chamberlain. The fact that a white woman from the West was given access to a piece of colonial heritage, but a brown Punjabi man paying homage to his ancestral legacy was refused it, raised more than just a few eyebrows — and my blood pressure. This is why Margot Robbie wearing the Taj Mahal Diamond while acknowledging very little of its colonial history and instead leading with its association with Elizabeth Taylor is so utterly problematic.
Besides several other concerns about how the Western media has de-contextualized and exoticized this piece, one of the “facts” that irked me was their incorrect characterization of the inscription on the necklace as being in Parsi. This includes leading fashion editorials like Vogue. Parsi is not a language but a community. Parsis are an ethno-religious people primarily in India and Pakistan who follow Zoroastrianism, having emigrated from 8th and 10th century Persia to escape religious persecution. The language of the inscription, however, is in Farsi, a language spoken in Iran (formerly Persia), using the Nastaliq script.
The need to achieve cultural refinement through access to antiquity that is not their own lies at the core of White colonialist ideology; that too, while denying access to the very same privileges to those they “borrow” from. I am upset not because Margot Robbie wore this piece of my country’s history, but because she couldn’t even acknowledge what it represents. We cannot undo the past, but we can start with acknowledging it at the very least. Would she, a white woman working in the U.S., dare to wear a totem of black American history? And, would onlookers herald it as an iconic moment in fashion history? If the answer is no, then maybe it’s time we think about why this was reduced to the status of just a decision made in poor taste.
