Top Ten Expensive Gifts for Women: The First Five

A colleague, searching for ideas for gifts, asked me recently about gifts for women that are a bit expensive. As I had just written a hub extolling the virtues of spending more thought and less money, I decided that in all fairness, I needed to research the other side of the debate.

Not being one to do things by halves, I quickly realized that simply throwing more money into the fray was not enough. The ante had to be raised high enough to make things truly interesting - nothing less would do than an article about the top ten most expensive gifts for women.

Developing my theme a bit further, I decided to research the top ten most popular gifts for women, and then, just for fun, find out what those gifts would look like if money were no object.

1. Flowers are always lovely, and a most welcome gift, unless your lady has severe allergies. In time though, traditional bundles of carnations and teacup arrangements can become a bit passe. Consider a bouquet of rare and exotic orchids. More specifically, see if you can lay your hands on a bouquet of this new species of orchids developed over eight long years by a group of Chinese scientists. The orchid was purchased at auction for about $200,000 US.

Now, if we were living in 1630, you would have bought her tulips, then, the most expensive flower in Europe, due to the buyer speculation that created "The Great Tulip Bubble."

2. Candy: My grandmother, a petite, newly graduated R.N., married her dashing young Cavalryman shortly after the Great War, and they remained together 'til Grampa died at the age of 88. Every year, on Valentine's Day, Grampa bought Grandma a box of Ganong's chocolates. He "traveled" for them after WWII, before he went into the hotel business. In later years, he could have bought her more expensive chocolates, but that box of Ganong's chocolates was a sentimental reminder for them both of those early days.

Perhaps a simple chocolate bar will suit her taste - Cadbury's Special Edition, caramel-filled Wispa Gold bar. Retailing for about $1600 US, “the world’s most expensive chocolate bar,” covered in edible gold-leaf and packaged in a gold wrapper, is sold at Selfridges, London.

Actually, the phrase "edible gold" is a syntactical redundancy, as all gold is edible - totally safe when eaten or drunk, and well-known for its non-allergenic properties, which made it the perfect material for use in dental fillings.

If she prefers pralines to plain, ordinary gold leaf-coated chocolate, why not pick up a box of DeLafee’s Swiss chocolate pralines, covered with 24-carat edible gold leaf that is hand-applied to each chocolate. A box of eight, tiny pralines retails for a mere $100 US.

Then again, you might want to opt for something truly impressive from the Serendipity 3 restaurant in New York - the Frrozen Haute Chocolate Sundae. Retailing for a paltry $25,000, and certified by Guinness as the most expensive chocolate dessert in the world, the sundae contains a blend of 28 chocolates, 14 of which are the rarest in the world, and is infused and dusted with five grams of edible 23-carat gold.

To top it all off, the Sundae Extraordinaire is presented in a crystal goblet and eaten with a diamond-encrusted gold spoon, which of course you can take home along with the little treat at the bottom of the goblet - an 18-karat gold bracelet studded with one carat weight of white diamonds...which leads to our next "most popular gift" -

3. Jewelry is always a delightful gift, and there is such a wide range from which to choose. Some of you may remember "Add-A-Pearl" bracelets and necklaces. Similar to charm bracelets, these were given to young women as their first "grown-up" pieces, and then a pearl, or charm, would be added on every special occasion, eventually forming a completed strand of pearls, or wrist full of tinkling charms.

Tiffany & Co. carries a delightful line of gold charm bracelets and adorable charms, some of which retail for a modest $2000 US, as well as a lovely selection of diamond encrusted bangles, however If pearls are more to her liking, you could offer an initial strand of rare, perfectly matched Baroda pearls, before you go all out with the Baroda Pearl Carpet.

This amazing work of art was created by Gujarat jewelers for the Maharaja of Baroda, Gaekwar Khande Rao, and consisted of more than 1.5 million pearls. The carpet set a Qatar auction record, selling for $5.5 million US.

4. Perfume: You can also combine perfume and jewelry both in Clive Christian Imperial Majesty Perfume for Women, a limited edition of a Clive Christian signature scent that retails for about $240,000, presented in a hand-crafted, diamond-encrusted, Baccarat crystal bottle.

Why not go the full distance, and have a scent designed especially for her. Many perfume houses have made "signature scent" design their hallmark. The Floris website says this about Bespoke (Signature) Perfumery:

"At Floris we have been creating bespoke perfume for a long list of highly esteemed clientele dating back as far as 1730.

An initial consultation with the Floris perfumer will determine the preferred perfume profile and the direction to take for this exquisite new composition. Using rare and precious essential oils and floral essences gathered from around the world, the Floris perfumer will custom blend an exclusive and individual fragrance."

The full experience requires three consultations over a period of six months, and entitles your lady to a further 5 - 100 ml refills of her signature scent - cost: about $4400 US.

5. Dinner and a movie are standard date-fare, but bump it up a few notches and suddenly your date becomes memorable. Instead of a candle-lit dinner in a nice restaurant, fly her to Paris for dinner at the exclusive and chic Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée. Of course, you'll probably have to book 9 months in advance, because the incredibly chic, expensive Alain Ducasse is also incredibly over-booked - but she's worth a bit of extra planning - and when dinner's over, pop over to Cannes for one of the must-see premieres at the International Film Festival.

It is tempting, I know, to simply type "most expensive..." into your search engine, and go with whatever results you find. A word of caution - some "most expensive" items require a bit more digging to uncover their true value. For example - the world's most expensive coffee...

Kopi Luwak coffee, is touted as the world's most expensive coffee. This coffee retails for about $400 a pound, and coffee, especially expensive coffee can be a thoughtful gift for any coffee lover, however I would not recommend this as a top ten gift-giving option, and I would definitely not recommend offering a cup to your lady fair and explaining the coffee's unusual processing after she tastes it.

This coffee is owes its rich, unique flavor to the Kopi Luwak, or Palm Civet Cat, and is made exclusively from coffee beans that have been passed through the Kopi Luwak's digestive tract. The Kopi Luwak eats the coffee beans and then, as is the way of such things, excretes them. The undigested beans are then gathered and roasted. Some folk don't care to consume something that has been excreted, so ask first - or save yourself the recriminations, and put your $400 towards a different gift.

© 2011, Elle Fredine, All rights reserved