November 29, 2007
Critical Shopper
Between the Rocks and a Hard Sell
by CINTRA WILSON
PERCEPTION
really is reality.
The
department store windows on
It takes
truckloads of top-dollar creative input to impress a New Yorker enough to stop
walking in cold weather, but the annual window displays always manage to slam
home the emotional impact of the winter holidays.
Dear God, you
think, infused with dread. I have to buy a million things.
Max and Clara
Fortunoff opened their first department store in
I have seen a
lot of heavy shopping bags from their Fifth Avenue store hanging over a number
of minky elbows over the years, so I presumed Fortunoff to be fancy, in that
old New Yawk way.
The doorman’s
red Beefeater uniform is of a primary-colored, fuzzy felt usually seen on giant
animals outside F. A. O. Schwarz. Inside, the store has a spare, masculine
late-1960s look, as if Steve McQueen might walk in, hit the dark wood paneling
with his fist and reveal a chrome wet bar.
When
archaeologists are digging
There is a
saleswoman approximately every five feet. Some are young, with pencil eyebrows
and hoop earrings; others have accents and lipstick on their teeth. You quickly
learn that giving them eye contact is like waving an eight-foot croissant in
front of beach-town gulls: they’re so attentive, you might lose an arm.
“No thank you, just browsing at the moment, thank you,” I
chanted steadily enough to become more deeply Buddhist.
If you reject
their initial blasts of attention, they lean back into groups and resume
full-voiced conversations, even if you stand in their section, suddenly
pointing, clearing your throat and waving your arms around.
I got one to
come back.
“Could you
tell me who designed this piece?”
I didn’t know
how to think about this bracelet — there were so many diamonds all over it.
She began
blinking at me, utterly mystified.
“Hmmm, I
don’t know,” she said.
She flagged
another saleswoman. She, too, stared as blankly as if I had asked her to hold
my cormorant.
I resumed
browsing, trying to look involved with my phone as a means of avoiding further
service.
There was a
blizzard of gems, nothing catching my eye, until Wham! There it was: the most
tawdry, enormous Chiclet-size
aquamarine-and-brown-diamond-encrusted cross since the reign of Pope Liberace
I. I was informed that this $14,995 rascal had been purchased “by someone in
the rock ’n’ roll business.” Perhaps ... as a weapon.
A small case
in back was, for me, the heart of the store: a selection of vintage estate
pieces bought by Ruth Fortunoff, who clearly has an
eye for them. I loved a thick 18-karat rope fastened by two rams’ heads and
glittering knobs of ruby and sandstone. It was very Fall of Rome. Tragically,
it was $6,500.
Upstairs,
there are silver-dipped baby things, cuff links reminiscent of Thibault petits fours, and an
exhaustively ecumenical array of bracelet charms. Every dog breed, religion,
sport and snack is represented. Hands of
The bridal
registry offers designs by Villeroy & Boch, Haviland, Wedgwood, et al.
The china was underwhelming, but I was wild about a ruthlessly decadent set of
gold-plate and silver flatware, perfect for Idi Amin. I begged a
representative to tell me about it.
She stared
ruefully at a blank spot where a label was apparently supposed to be. “Tsss. I have to tell the girl.
She did not put the thing.” The side of the knife, once I pried off the Velcro,
said it was Wallace sterling. No price was available.
Lurking
downstairs are the biggest diamonds of all: the engagement sets. The space was
once a bank; there is a stunning walk-in vault that looks like a 1920s ship
engine, which I was not allowed to photograph. The knowledgeable head jeweler
indulged me gracefully as I ogled Girl’s Best Friend in cocktail colors.
“Where did
this come from?” I asked another gentleman on the sales floor, about the most
monstrous ring I could find: 3.25 carats ($58,000).
“I’m not
sure, but there’s no blood diamonds,” he said.
That’s when I
saw it: a bigger cross. Enough brown diamonds for a
terrazzo casino floor. I didn’t want to know this cross. I’m sorry I met it. I
never want to see it again ($55,000).
The largely
untrained staff undermines what the new Fortunoff
could be — i.e., more like Tiffany, less like Macy’s — in the mind of someone
new to it.
Some brides
must have emotional connections to Fortunoff. It was
a place they went with their grandmothers, maybe, or where their first pearls
were bought. Maybe, for them, the name alone is enough to inspire the
perception of continuity; of an unbroken chain of family tradition, as opposed
to just a chain.
May “The
Source” be with them.
Fortunoff
