Old World Prestige Arrives on the Scene
It might seem unbelievable that Gianmarie Buccellati decided to make a $1-million investment in a Beverly Hills store--based entirely on a feeling. But that’s what the head of this family-owned, luxury silver and jewelry house did. His new store opens this Saturday in the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard.
The 60-year-old goldsmith and jeweler, as he likes to be called, has the full-bodied appearance of an opera star and the soul of an artist. And he is in town for the opening with his wife, Rosa Maria, who travels and works by his side.
Relied on Intuition
He says he started thinking about opening a store here in 1980. “It’s difficult to say why. It’s a feeling,” he explains. He says his late father, Mario, relied on intuition too, when he opened a store on New York’s Fifth Avenue in 1951. Something told him: “ ‘This is a place to go,’ ” Buccellati reports.
There is evidence of kismet on the walls of the small but sumptuous new shop. Buccellati stumbled upon the wood panels, a set of 18th-Century antiques, six years ago. He kept them in storage until now. How did they fit? “Exactly,” he says, smiling.
As the Beverly Hills shopping district around the hotel becomes increasingly upscale and international, many merchants are happy to see the arrival of the prestigious jeweler.
“It’s good for the area,” acknowledges retailer Frances Klein of Frances Klein Estate Jewels Inc. “One more store of quality and distinction is important.” And, no, she isn’t worried about the competition. “We all do our own thing,” she says.
Donald Tronstein, former chairman of the Rodeo Drive Committee and a landlord with 11 retail tenants on Rodeo Drive--which borders the Regent Beverly Wilshire’s western side--sounds happy too, even though for several years he courted the company with a lease for space in one of his buildings, but was rejected.
Now, he says: “It’s good for the street and he will bring other quality people.”
Not all prestigious retailers have been satisfied in Beverly Hills’ so-called retail Golden Triangle. In 1987, Italian merchant Athos Pratesi closed his costly linen store in the Rodeo Collection shopping center after four disappointing years and settled into a storefront on Burton Way.
At the time he said: “Perhaps Rodeo is a good street for someone selling little items like costume jewelry, but the customer who is refined doesn’t feel comfortable in that environment.”
Retailer Madeleine Gallay recently left Beverly Hills after 17 years as co-proprietor of the Charles Gallay boutique. Now she is ensconced in the Sunset Plaza shop that carries her own name. But she says a store like Buccellati should fare well in Beverly Hills.
“People do come to Beverly Hills to buy expensive things, because that’s all there is,” she says. “In fact, you can hardly buy a book or magazine there anymore. But if you’re a Buccellati or a Tiffany type of store, it’s wonderful.”
Although consumers may be most familiar with the company’s ornate, silver flatware, the new shop will sell only jewelry, so as not to compete with several Los Angeles and Beverly Hills accounts that have carried the silver line for many years, Buccellati says.
All of the jewelry is designed by Buccellati himself, and it is handmade by craftsmen he trained with Old World techniques. Though it is possible to buy a gold ring for $1,000, important pieces, such as a diamond cuff with 264 diamonds weighing a total of 20 karats, sells for $159,000. Diamond necklaces can sell for $200,000 or $300,000.
Recognizable Style
Even if it is only being admired from a distance, once someone has seen a signed Buccellati necklace or bracelet--delicate, etched gold and often incorporating natural images such as leaves or flowers--the style is immediately recognizable.
Contrary to the prevailing taste for big, showy “rocks,” Buccellati prefers that the jewelry settings themselves be works of art, rather than just holders for important, large stones. “I have some pieces with big stones of 10 or 12 karats, but not many,” he says.
Everyone from Jacqueline Onassis to Pope Paul VI and “all the European crowns” have been customers of Buccellati, including many residents of Los Angeles who have shopped in the Buccellati shops in New York, Paris and Monte Carlo. Buccellati expects that from one-third to one-half of his business here will come from the locals, and the rest from foreign trade.
