To get Daisy Buchanan dressed for an extravagant party in the recent “The Great Gatsby” film, costume designers complemented actress Carey Mulligan’s dress with – what else? – a diamond headband and a boatload of pearls from Tiffany & Co.

Those accessories were just part of the eye-popping glitz loaned by Tiffany – and it represented a significant coup for Kathryn Vanderveen, president and owner at brand integration firm Createology in Santa Monica.

Vanderveen said the idea was to go well beyond the normal scope of product placement.

“I’ve always felt product placement could be so much more than a beer bottle in the hand of a celebrity,” she said. “It could be a real collaboration and partnership with an artistic approach.”

Vanderveen scored the deal after following up on rumors that director Baz Luhrmann’s version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel was going into production some three-and-a-half years ago. She got in touch with the film’s costume designer, Luhrmann’s wife, Catherine Martin, with whom she’d worked on “Moulin Rouge.” Martin was at the time researching brands that would be appropriate to the time period and the upper-crust milieu. For example, Brooks Bros. suits also factor heavily into the movie’s wardrobe.

In the Tiffany deal, producers got to use the authentic diamonds and pearls without having to pay anything. (They had to give it all back, of course.) In exchange, the jeweler got the exposure of a worldwide release and has since launched a high-end line of “Gatsby”-inspired jewelry: A diamond headband similar to the one Daisy’s character wears costs $200,000.

It’s a great calling card for the five-person Createology office, which has annual revenue between $500,000 and $750,000. The company is compensated on annual retainer by Tiffany and other brands rather than on a per-production basis.

Meanwhile, the integration has paid off for Tiffany, which credited the “Gatsby” tie-in for part of its better-than-expected first quarter sales.

– Jonathan Polakoff