Alan’s father, second-generation president and CEO of Pavlin & Co, the family’s eponymous jewelry company founded in 1919, had always treated Alan more as a child than a business partner. Two years after his father’s death, Alan was still trying to prove himself. But Elliot cast a long shadow over Pavlin & Co. After all, how did one compete with the man who single-handedly created the entire market for diamond engagement rings?

Elliot, in his day, faced the same sort of downturn Alan was grappling with now. In the 1940s, diamond sales plummeted. Post–World War II, expensive jewelry suddenly seemed frivolous. Faced with a crisis, he conducted a marketing survey, and what he found surprised him: Middle-class women preferred that their husbands spend their money on something practical, like a washing machine. Diamonds, it appeared, were only for the very wealthy.

Elliot immediately recognized the challenge in front of him: how to make diamonds a necessity instead of a luxury. To do this, he knew he would have to appeal to customers’ emotions. And what was the strongest emotion? Love. What occasions marked true love? Marriage and engagement. A rite of passage millions and millions of women experienced each year. And yes, rings were involved. But at the time, it might be a family heirloom opal or a small moonstone.

Until Elliot reminded everyone, with a dramatic and visually captivating ad campaign, that the “great” love story between Archduke Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy in 1477 began with the first-ever faceted diamond engagement ring. And the classic “A Diamond Says Love” campaign was born, changing the industry—and the very concept of engagement—forever.

Elliot had endless strategies to get the rings in front of the public, including gifting diamond rings to actresses and society women on occasions like the Academy Awards or the Kentucky Derby, then hiring photographers to get clear photographs of the baubles on display. “People don’t know what they want until you tell them what to want,” he’d said.

Now, in the last decade of the century, it again seemed difficult to convince people that what they wanted was fine jewelry.

It was a relief to be back home after the party. Their sprawling Park Avenue apartment felt empty now that two of their three daughters were out of the nest, but at moments like this she was grateful for some privacy.