I often get asked if it’s better to buy from an independent jeweler or a luxury brand considering the quality and the fact that you can sometimes bargain at one and not the other.
Luxury brands come with luxury prices. If you’re willing to pay those prices, great! I would genuinely like to know you because I grew up in a family where my father bargained for everything. Everything! He would try to bargain in Costco! Not being born in this country, my father viewed prices the way many view a yellow light at an intersection – a suggestion. Now, I am by no means complaining or embarrassed about this. Yes, at times I cringed but mostly I watched and learned.
My first hands-on experience with bargaining happened in the 6th grade when my parents pulled me and my sister out of school for a month to go explore East Asia. Upon our immediate arrival in Hong Kong, my father told me he was going to take me bargaining for rubies. Naturally, for a kid who loved sparkly things and spending one on one time with her father, I was very enthusiastic at the prospect!
Now, let’s take a slight detour so I can paint a picture for you before I continue my story (it’s relevant, I promise) – imagine an awkward kid with elastic cotton shorts of an unnaturally bright hue, a color coordinated top, a weird haircut that was neither long enough to do anything with nor short enough to be called a feminine pixie cut, huge glasses circa 1993, bright white Keds and a visor. Not a hat, a visor that today would be referred to as “retro” but at the time was just pitiful. I’m tempted at this point to question my mother’s judgment in letting me leave the house in such a state but maybe she thought I’d eventually grow out of being so…. myself. P.S. – I didn’t.
Now we can return to the story…
I walked into this fine jewelry store in Hong Kong in all my dorky glory and looking back on it, it’s evident no one took me seriously but at the time I felt like an absolute rock star! My father started guiding me from case to case, showing me the color variations of the rubies, how some had more pink undertones or brown undertones and others were pure red (what jewelers refer to as pigeon blood red) and then how some had inclusions and others were so flawless they looked like cut red glass. He finally found a stone he liked and began his bargaining ritual. I, being an inquisitive child with gumption, wandered off to a case of opals. There was a rather large one with flashes of blues and greens and the sales lady pulled it out for me, placing it on a black velvet tray that suddenly made me feel much more important than I was considering my shorts had a drawstring. The sales lady told me the price and I followed the basics of what my father taught me on the way there – cut the price by two thirds, keep pointing out the flaws and don’t be attached to the outcome. I was in 6th grade and knew nothing about the supposed “flaws” in opals but I was apparently very convincing because after a few minutes of back and forth, I found that the sales lady and I were reaching across the elegant glass display case to shake on the agreed upon price when my father suddenly came running in what appeared to be slow motion yelling “Nooooooo….”
Needless to say, my father didn’t buy the opal but he did a double take and looked at me with such pride when I told him how much they had asked originally and finally how much they had agreed to sell it for.
Throughout the rest of the trip we alternated between visiting luxury brand name jewelry stores and independent high-quality retailers. Both had fine examples of extraordinary craftsmanship. Side note: a not-so-well-kept secret is that many of these independent jewelers have worked for the top luxury brands before opening their own retail establishments and you can see their well-honed skills in their own designs. Honestly, on that trip I fell in love with both types of shopping but I still favor the store you can walk into, get quoted one price and leave with the satisfaction of knowing you got it for a different and lesser price!
The moral of the story is this: designer retail is great and you will definitely walk away with quality jewelry from any luxury brand you decide to buy from but you’ll never get a story like that out the experience! And at the end of the day, I think it’s our experiences that make us who we are, not the brands or jewelry we own.
I often get asked if it’s better to buy from an independent jeweler or a luxury brand considering the quality and the fact that you can sometimes bargain at one and not the other.
Luxury brands come with luxury prices. If you’re willing to pay those prices, great! I would genuinely like to know you because I grew up in a family where my father bargained for everything. Everything! He would try to bargain in Costco! Not being born in this country, my father viewed prices the way many view a yellow light at an intersection – a suggestion. Now, I am by no means complaining or embarrassed about this. Yes, at times I cringed but mostly I watched and learned.
My first hands-on experience with bargaining happened in the 6th grade when my parents pulled me and my sister out of school for a month to go explore East Asia. Upon our immediate arrival in Hong Kong, my father told me he was going to take me bargaining for rubies. Naturally, for a kid who loved sparkly things and spending one on one time with her father, I was very enthusiastic at the prospect!
Now, let’s take a slight detour so I can paint a picture for you before I continue my story (it’s relevant, I promise) – imagine an awkward kid with elastic cotton shorts of an unnaturally bright hue, a color coordinated top, a weird haircut that was neither long enough to do anything with nor short enough to be called a feminine pixie cut, huge glasses circa 1993, bright white Keds and a visor. Not a hat, a visor that today would be referred to as “retro” but at the time was just pitiful. I’m tempted at this point to question my mother’s judgment in letting me leave the house in such a state but maybe she thought I’d eventually grow out of being so…. myself. P.S. – I didn’t.
Now we can return to the story…
I walked into this fine jewelry store in Hong Kong in all my dorky glory and looking back on it, it’s evident no one took me seriously but at the time I felt like an absolute rock star! My father started guiding me from case to case, showing me the color variations of the rubies, how some had more pink undertones or brown undertones and others were pure red (what jewelers refer to as pigeon blood red) and then how some had inclusions and others were so flawless they looked like cut red glass. He finally found a stone he liked and began his bargaining ritual. I, being an inquisitive child with gumption, wandered off to a case of opals. There was a rather large one with flashes of blues and greens and the sales lady pulled it out for me, placing it on a black velvet tray that suddenly made me feel much more important than I was considering my shorts had a drawstring. The sales lady told me the price and I followed the basics of what my father taught me on the way there – cut the price by two thirds, keep pointing out the flaws and don’t be attached to the outcome. I was in 6th grade and knew nothing about the supposed “flaws” in opals but I was apparently very convincing because after a few minutes of back and forth, I found that the sales lady and I were reaching across the elegant glass display case to shake on the agreed upon price when my father suddenly came running in what appeared to be slow motion yelling “Nooooooo….”
Needless to say, my father didn’t buy the opal but he did a double take and looked at me with such pride when I told him how much they had asked originally and finally how much they had agreed to sell it for.
Throughout the rest of the trip we alternated between visiting luxury brand name jewelry stores and independent high-quality retailers. Both had fine examples of extraordinary craftsmanship. Side note: a not-so-well-kept secret is that many of these independent jewelers have worked for the top luxury brands before opening their own retail establishments and you can see their well-honed skills in their own designs. Honestly, on that trip I fell in love with both types of shopping but I still favor the store you can walk into, get quoted one price and leave with the satisfaction of knowing you got it for a different and lesser price!
The moral of the story is this: designer retail is great and you will definitely walk away with quality jewelry from any luxury brand you decide to buy from but you’ll never get a story like that out the experience! And at the end of the day, I think it’s our experiences that make us who we are, not the brands or jewelry we own.