Jewelry, 90210-style
In search of baubles, the rich and famous begin in Beverly Hills
Pressed to name the most famous luxury shopping street in the world, a majority of people would probably cite Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif. The mythical reputation of this palm-lined avenue in the heart of Los Angeles evokes images of celebrities and Tinseltown millionaires shuffling past its shops every morning, browsing for Oscar fashions or gala jewels while fetching coffee and bagels.
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| Picture courtesy of Beverly Hills Convention & Visitors Bureau |
“This street looks like a mecca, but we don’t get foot traffic,” says Ali Soltani, owner of David Orgell, a 7,000-square-foot jewelry and tabletop emporium that’s been in the same Rodeo Drive location since 1958. “L.A.’s a car destination.” Besides, the brand-name competition — including Tiffany & Co., Cartier, Harry Winston, Van Cleef & Arpels and De Beers (located on the north end of the drive since December 2005) — dominates the high jewelry sector. That leaves Los Angeles’s most discerning consumers to seek their jewelry fix further east, in West Hollywood, where movie stars do their real shopping. Neil Lane, a fixture on Beverly Boulevard for decades (until, that is, a recent fire ravaged the Antiquarius Center strip mall, where his stall was located) is young Hollywood’s bridal and awards night specialist, thanks to his enormous collection of vintage jewelry and his contemporary take on classic diamond staples. Erica Courtney and Dominique Cohen, two couture mavens with sizable celebrity followings, congregate around Robertson Boulevard. It’s no exaggeration to suggest that paparazzi lurk in the bushes near the entrances to their boutiques. Courtney’s door is footsteps away from The Ivy, one of L.A.’s hottest eateries. Around the corner, on Melrose, lies Maxfield, fashionista heaven for its expertly edited selection of vintage Hermès bags, Yohji Yamamoto fashions and jewels by local gemstone queen Sandra Müller. Given that Beverly Hills more or less divides Los Angeles into two camps — the Westside and Hollywood — it also serves as an end-point for consumers who dwell in the western beach communities of Santa Monica and Malibu. But sometimes even Beverly Hills is too far to go for jewels. In this case, Westside residents stick to local shops like Santa Monica’s 23rd Street Jewelers, a jewelry box of a boutique that sells hand-crafted platinum rings and rose-cut diamond necklaces, and Rafinity, where Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant famously bought his wife an 8-carat purple diamond ring worth $4 million.
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California dreamin’ Two Rodeo, located off Beverly Hills’s famed Rodeo Drive, is the epicenter of the Los Angeles luxury scene. De Beers opened nearby in 2005, selling high-priced jewels like its new Valley of Diamonds collection, which includes this Follow Me ring featuring 2.53 carats of rough diamonds and 2.90 carats of white and fancy colored pavé diamonds in white gold, $30,000.
