LIFEIMAGESCOLLECTION/GETTY^IMAGES(SHOPPERS,SAKS^ENTRANCE)1924
SAKS FIFTH
AVENUE
The department
store has
occupied its Fifth
Avenue perch for
nearly a century.2019
THE VAULT
Saks Fifth
Avenue’s 10,673-
square-foot
temple to jewelry
and watches
opens this month.1936
1995
1960 S
“We have been here since
19 24, but we have not been
servicing jewelry clients
in the right way. Now we
are the answer.”MARC METRICK President, Saks Fifth Avenue
She picked up a “decent amount” of High
Jewelry on one such trip at an appointment
at Chanel in Paris, including a one-of-a-kind
baroque pearl necklace and pearl earrings she
wears “on the ranch.” But though these excur-
sions have broadened her jewelry horizons,
she still buys most of her jewelry through
Nona Barrick at the San Antonio Saks. They
have worked together for more than three
decades.bracelets on each wrist. “And I just say, ‘Actu-
ally, I’m not’. In San Antonio we think big.”
How big? This fall Saks Fifth Avenue is
making perhaps its most significant invest-
ment to date in cultivating more clients like
Kittie West, when the Vault—10,673 square
feet devoted exclusively to watches and jew-
elry—opens in a subterranean space in its
New York flagship.
To enter the Vault, one descends an esca-
lator designed by Rem Koolhaas, emerging
into a retail concept five years in the making.“That escalator is this architectural wow that
introduces people to these beautiful watch
and jewelry shops,” says Marc Metrick, presi-
dent of Saks Fifth Avenue. “Why shouldn’t an
American store have that kind of moment?”
Once the client has landed, the mission is
full immersion and full-on attention, the kind
of catered-to experience that has made people
like Kittie West so devoted. “The focus,” says
Marta Nowakowski, Saks’s vice president and
divisional merchandise manager of jewelry, is
on “personalization, exclusivity, and amazing“She worked with my mother, too. It’s
generational,” says West, who is a philanthro-
pist as well as a ranch owner. “And I like to
support my hometown. I always say you take
care of those who take care of you.” Barrick,
who has been part of the Fifth Avenue Club
team of personal shoppers for 33 years, does
just that for West. She has flown from Texas
to be with her at the Vuitton show, and she
was by her side on that trip to Paris. She says
West is “the fastest shopper” she has ever seen.
West explains: “I tried calling them invest-
ment pieces so my financial adviser didn’t
freak out. But I really don’t have a strategy.
I just know what works. And I always have
something on. People will say, ‘Wow, you’re
wearing a lot of jewelry,’” says West, who at this
moment has a ring on every finger and several86 SEPTEMBER 2019 | TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM