Saturday, January 14, 2012

Private Equity and A Very Private Party


In the left corner - An Unprecedented Event!  In the right corner - Rarely Such A Luxurious Fragrance!

Well done, ad placement department! 





Well, they were having a sale.  Prices starting at about $15,500.00 in 2011 dollars.  They were moving from wherever to 718 5th Avenue, where the company still resides in what is called a "Harry Winston Salon." Nothing so common as a jewelry store!

I always thought Harry Winston was a Beverly Hills outfit with a New York branch.  The phrase "jeweler to the stars" did pop into mind.   Harry Winston is to the Academy Awards as Broyhill was to Let's Make a Deal.

I did not know that Harry Winston bought the Hope Diamond and donated it to the Smithsonian.  I have a vague recollection of either seeing it or not seeing it there.

Thanks to the candidacy of Mitt Romney, I am able to actually understand this article from NYT in 2000.  (After a nasty family fight, in 2000, one of the sons of Harry Winston acquired the company along with a private equity firm that also owned a stake in Aunt Jemima.) 


Do you remember the year 2000?   "At a time when more Americans than ever are able to indulge themselves in jewelry costing $10,000 or more, limiting access this way (not building a lot of stores) is a flawed strategy, said Russell Shor, a jewelry industry consultant. ''People are time-pressed,'' he said, ''They want convenience, they want service.''


Yet on the other hand, twenty per cent of revenue for Harry Winston came from cheap crap they sold at Penney's under an undisclosed name.  


Here is Harry Winston  in 1960.  Apparently, for security reasons, his face was never photographed.  


harrywinston.com




Another Van Cleef and Revlon pairing.  The "even stronger than toilet water" kind of takes away from "Luxurious Fragrance Gift."  And you get 1,000 hits of this stuff for five bucks!  ($39)  


I don't remember this at all.  Created in 1955, it was apparently meant to be frankly sexual in an "American" way - musky and floral.  Not sure when Intimate was discontinued, but it remained very frankly sexual in 1987:  







Let's go to the movies!




* A man walks into a bar and ends up dangling from Abe Lincoln's nose.


*  Notice the preview doesn't give away the crop duster.  Lucky 1959 audience!  I've seen this twice in the theater, and still I enjoyed it on the laptop.  I had forgotten entirely the bit toward the end in the fascist Frank Lloyd Wright-style villa.  Even the odd console television/wet bar plays its own part.  And Martin Landau as the spurned lover - never noticed that before.  


*  Cary Grant.  Kept reminding myself that it was Cary Grant and not George Clooney, who must watch this movie every single day.  Very refreshing break from James Stewart and all his agonizing anxiety.  Cary Grant has no inner landscape.   It always struck me that the whole story hinges on Roger's exaggerated concern that he will miss meeting his mother at the theater that night.  

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...