Where There Are Diamonds On The Floor

Inside one store’s road map to jewelry dominance.

- Stellene Volandes

“I remember you. You’re the lady with the jewelry.” It’s the kind of thing Kittie West hears from time to time. On this occasion the phrase poured out of the mouth of the manager of Mr. Chow’s on East 57th Street. West had come to New York from her native San Antonio to attend the Louis Vuitton Cruise show at the new TWA Terminal at JFK. Afterward she wanted some Chinese food. Accompanying her, to the show and to dinner, were friends she has trusted decades: her salespeople at Saks Fifth Avenue.

“They were the ones who exposed me to all these jewelry designers,” says West, her emerald and green tourmaline–laden hands folded on the table at L’Avenue, the new restaurant at Saks’s New York flagship. Her Nini kunzite pendant occasionally hits her plate. “Repossi, Chanel, Chopard. I didn’t know Vuit ton made this kind of jewelry.” Aside from heirlooms that belonged to her mother, every piece she is wearing she bought through Saks—either at her local store or on one of the VIP shopping trips Saks arranges for its best clients.

She picked up a “decent amount” of High Jewelry on one such trip at an appointment at Chanel in Paris, including a one-of-a-kind baroque pearl necklace and pearl earrings she wears “on the ranch.” But though these excursions have broadened her jewelry horizons, she still buys most of her jewelry through Nona Barrick at the San Antonio Saks. They have worked together for more than three decades.