The Necklace: A true story of 13 women, 1 diamond necklace and a fabulous idea. Cheryl Jarvis

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СКАЧАТЬ choosing colours and styles that would complement the diamonds. That would be the easy part.

      

      Patti Channer grew up the youngest of six children in Malverne, New York, a small dormitory community on Long Island. Her mother was a fashion aficionado who each season took her daughters on daylong shopping expeditions to the Garment District in Manhattan. First stop was either Saks or Bergdorf’s. At those upmarket department stores Patti’s mother studied the new designer styles. Then she’d take her daughters to Klein’s on Fourteenth Street, the best fashion discount outlet of that era. She knew just what to buy. She’d rummage through the piles of discounted designer garments and head back home with the right stuff. Whether by osmosis, training or something in her DNA, Patti developed a similar eye for fashion and an instinct for the deal.

      According to all four daughters, their mother was a stunner, a stately woman who could wear designer clothes with style. She pulled her golden-red hair back in a French twist, kept her beautiful nails manicured, and always wore accessorised her outfits. She was known for her distinctive taste and for dressing her girls in style. She taught Patti and her sisters to take pride in their appearance, because she believed that clothes reveal personality. When Patti started dating boys, her mother instructed her: ‘Always look at a man’s shoes.’ When the family moved to the West Coast, Ventura was the thrift capital of Southern California and Patti’s mother was Queen of the Charity Shop. Patti never forgot finding a chandelier for four hundred dollars exactly like one her mother had bought for five dollars.

      ‘My love of shopping is genetic, and I consider myself a consummate shopper. I used to pride myself on being able to go into a shop and run my fingers over the fabrics and know which jacket was by one of the top designers. I was never wrong.’

      It wasn’t surprising that Patti’s first job while in college was in retail. She worked for Abraham & Straus on Long Island, moving between different departments, and when she was assigned to the jewellery department she bought her first pair of good earrings. They were 14-carat-gold hoops, the size of a two-pence piece, the wires intricately bent into a serpentine design.

      ‘They were two hundred dollars – this was in 1970 – and I had to pay for them in instalments. I knew they were one of a kind. They made a statement. When I wore those earrings I felt special. Since that time, I’ve never gone out of the house without jewellery. Never.

      ‘Buying for many people is an aphrodisiac. If they’re sad, they go shopping, happy they go shopping, angry they go shopping. For me it’s the thrill of the hunt, finding the best quality at the best price. I rarely pay the full price. I found a beaded gauze top – a work of art – in a charity shop in Santa Barbara. I paid seventy-five dollars for it. Later when I pulled it out of the wardrobe to wear, I discovered the original price tag – thirteen hundred and fifty dollars. Another find! It felt orgasmic.’

      Patti couldn’t feel the same ecstasy with regard to the group necklace – she hadn’t searched it out and struck the deal. But she knew from the start that this was something quite different than just another purchase.

      ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘I needed another necklace like I needed a hole in the head.’

      

      The bedroom she shares with her husband is the perfect setting to discuss the necklace. In one corner, a bamboo hat rack is nearly invisible underneath handbags – quilted and jewelled and beaded bags, feather and leather, leopard and velvet bags, today’s and yesterday’s bags. And then there are the boas! Long ones, short ones, they come simple and sequinned, in red and chocolate and purple and pumpkin. In another corner, flowing over a wrought-iron quilt stand are wraps and more wraps – silk, woven, textured, fringed. A velvet wrap with mink pom-poms, a black suede wrap with cut-out fringe and a thick felt wrap with oversized pockets. On the bottom shelf of the stand a wicker basket cascades with scarves of cashmere and chenille, painted silks in olive and aubergine, a gold-and-black-sequinned scarf twists into a belt, then a headband, then a necklace.

      No matter what Patti drapes around her lean body, she looks good in it. She has a compellingly photogenic face and at nearly five feet, seven inches, she has enviable blonde hair, thick and wavy, a healthy, outdoor glow, and long limbs seemingly always in motion. Her hazel eyes literally glisten when she smiles – and as Patti gives a tour of her bedroom, she smiles a lot.

      More accessories fill the cherrywood dressing table: headbands and sunglasses and reading glasses, all jewelled and tortoiseshell and multicoloured and decorated for the holidays. In her walk-in wardrobe there are berets in every colour, dozens of belts and 150 pairs of shoes. ‘When I go to Las Vegas, I don’t gamble. I buy shoes,’ she says. ‘The boutiques at Caesars Palace have shoes you won’t find anywhere else in this country. I don’t buy the kind of things everyone else has. I don’t go to high-street chains unless I need socks. I like flea markets and charity shops.’

      And then there’s the jewellery. On one wall, hanging from three etched glass hooks, dangle necklaces galore: chains and beads, rhinestones and pearls, chokers and pendants. In the dresser next to the hooks, she’s filled drawers with bracelets and bangles, plus jewellery inherited from her mother and jewellery for every holiday: brooches and earrings shaped like wreaths, pumpkins, shamrocks and flags.

      In the wardrobe, there’s a fifty-four-pocket hanging jewellery holder with a pair of earrings in every section; and a thirty-pocket quilted case with jewellery in every section. More necklaces of multiple strands, multiple colours, necklaces made of pearls, gemstones, glass. ‘I have a mix of good and fake,’ she says. ‘If you have enough good, you can mix in the fake.’ Patti pulls out a necklace of burgundy silk cording with a tasselled ivory pendant hanging from a burgundy alligator spectacle case. She adjusts it around her neck, flips open the spectacle case, cocks her head to one side, then flashes a huge grin. ‘Would you look at this?’

      There isn’t a drawer, a shelf, a stand or a chest without hidden stashes and caches of jewellery. The only place Patti doesn’t keep it is in a safe.

      ‘After we bought Jewelia a neighbour showed me her diamond necklace, which she keeps locked up. Other women I know make copies of their jewellery and wear the copies. If you’re going to do that, what’s the point of having it? That first month the necklace was mine to wear, I made the conscious decision that I’d wear it every day.’

      

      During her first month with the necklace, Patti wore it to go body-boarding at a family wedding in Oahu, Hawaii; she wore it when she scored a very respectable 95 on eighteen holes of golf; and when helping to hose down a neighbourhood fire. She wore it to her husband’s paediatric dental practice, where she worked, and she wore it to the orthopaedic clinic when Gary underwent shoulder surgery. Then she donned the diamonds every evening while she worried about the aftermath of the operation. As she dragged on her cigarettes on the patio, she wondered if they would have to sell the practice? Would she be out of a job too, after twenty-nine years of running their office, managing the staff, coordinating the schedules and handling the books? For a while he’d been the only paediatric dentist in town, which meant seeing thirty to forty patients a day. That had been a lot of work, but gratifying too. She knew that her business sense had helped to make the practice successful. And Patti had met dozens of interesting women when they brought in their kids. In fact, that was the way she’d met Jonell.

      What if they did have to sell up? For the first time in her life, this turn of events made Patti feel uncertain about the future. She was sick of people asking her if she was looking forward to retirement. No, she wasn’t looking forward to doing nothing. She was high-energy and always had been. She hated that word ‘retirement’ – really, she thought society should think of a new one. Gary was happy at the prospect, but Patti struggled with the unknown that lay ahead, grew restless just thinking СКАЧАТЬ