Worthmore Jewelers

Sep 2

In their own words

“Growing up here, in the south, a lot of people tend to wear what their neighbors wear. When we opened in Midtown, we found a great community of people who wanted unique things. We don’t buy like most stores that constantly restock the same trendy item that every store has. We try to find jewelry you wouldn’t have seen in other places. And it might be the only time we get it—a lot of our pieces are handcrafted by artisans all over the world, so they take months to hit our showcase. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”

-Harris Botnick

Jason’s Interview With Harris

Jason

We're back at Meet the Jewelers and today we're talking to Harris Botnick! Tell us about Worthmore Jewelers and how did you get into the business?

Harris

We are in the heart of Midtown Atlanta. We’re twenty-six years old now. We have a second store we opened over eleven years ago. I've grown up in Atlanta, seen it change, evolve, and we saw a certain area in town underserved, which was the Midtown and Decatur areas. We wanted to open up a store that we really focus on inclusivity, to cater to everybody, selling top-quality merchandise in a more relaxed atmosphere. I always tell people if you need snob appeal, Worthmore Jewelers isn't for you. If you want top-notch merchandise with great service, very knowledgeable sales staff, in a fun, relaxing atmosphere, we’re the perfect store for you.

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On top of that, not only the experience but unique items. We have set ourselves apart in Atlanta, which is definitely an evolving city. When we opened in Midtown, we found a great community of people who wanted unique things, things they've never seen before. It's a lot more fun to be able to pick out more unique merchandise. We don't buy like most stores that restock the same trendy item that every store has. Our things are handcrafted by artisans all over the world, so they take months to hit our showcase, once we pick them out or help design them. Once they're gone, they're gone.

Jason
Can you talk about one of the designers or an item that excites you right now?

Harris
Belle Brooke, out of Santa Fe, works in all-clean metals, conflict-free metals, and stones. Her designs are done in all-white sterling silver. She also does a lot of oxidation technique and mixes that in with 18 karat, which is a nice deep rich yellow, adding in colored diamonds, colored stones, white diamonds, and then also in solid 18 karat. We had Belle in, a fantastic designer event, where customers got to meet her. On top of that, she was able to work on three custom pieces with the customers, solely designed for them.

Once you meet her, you fall in love even more with her jewelry because she is totally in it for the art purpose. She gets attached to her pieces. She gets attached to her colored stones that she's chosen. She’ll often be at a show, and I'll say, “Oh, I love this piece. How much is it?” and she'll be sort of hesitant and be like, “I’m really not sure I want to sell that one. I really love that stone. It spoke to me when I picked it.” We have to push her over the hurdle and remind her she made the piece for somebody else to enjoy it.

Jason
It's rare that you see a jewelry store also have artwork. Tell us more about your artwork and how that came to be.

Harris
We added in the artwork when we opened our second store, which is on the square in downtown Decatur. We took over a folk-art gallery. The first couple of weeks we were in there, customers kept on coming and knocking on the door saying, “Oh, are y’all a new art gallery?” It clicked with me that jewelry is art. It goes so well with it. We decided to add art into the new store. We got such a great reaction. We had absolutely no plans on remodeling the original store, but after a few months, we could see how much customers love the uniqueness of the art, every time they came in it was different. And we also had a chance to promote artists. Right now, we have everything from unique oils, one-of-a-kind acrylics, some pieces done by a London artist, photography done by a guy out of the Carolinas, and then some rock-and-roll photography, done by a well-known rock photographer. It really covers the gamut.

Jason
Is there a unique proposal story that you can share with us?

Harris
I have a few different proposal stories. One is, we actually married people in the store. Years ago, we had a couple in, two ladies who we custom-made rings for—they really felt a bond with their salesperson and said, “We would like you to perform a ceremony for us.” So, my sales lady came back and said, “Hey, you know this couple we've been working with. They love the rings. They want me to do a little ceremony for them. Can I do that?” I said “You can absolutely do that. But let's take it up a notch. Why don’t you go online, get ordained real quick,” which she did “and then perform the ceremony in-store, followed by champagne toasts all the way around.” That was a fun one. Over the years, we've been blessed to be invited to multiple weddings from customers that we met in the store and became friends with. One of my personal favorites is one of the ladies who has been with us over twenty years, she actually manages my Decatur location. When she was married four years ago—she's from out of the country, doesn't have any family here—she asked me to walk her down the aisle.

Not a proposal, but we did get to make her ring. It was really flattering that we have that type of bond with the people that we get to work with in the store.

Jason
Are there any key causes that you believe in?

Harris
For the past twelve years, we do one called Operation Stars and Stripes, where we collect Halloween candy after Halloween. We work with a local organization that gets it to the people serving our soldiers serving overseas in time for the holidays. It works great because there are so many families who have an overabundance of Halloween candy that they want out of their house. . They get it over to the soldiers, we get thank you notes from them—many of them don't get any mail from anybody in the US, more or less a stranger sending a care package. That one is very special to us. Last year, we teamed up with Heart of the Brain, a brain tumor foundation out in California. And we did some one-of-a-kind watches for them, where we took their logo and incorporated it into a watch style with Reactor Watch, also out of California. Locally, we've been working with Make-a-Wish, Women for Wish Society, Georgia Ovarian Cancer, The Link counseling center. That list goes on and on. All of them are important to us, for many different reasons. Sometimes somebody in our Worthmore family has been affected by one of these charities’ benefits. Sometimes it's a strong voice in the community.

Jason
Is there anything else that you want the world to know about?

Harris
We really love custom work. We have two great jewelers right here in the store. We also have outside design teams to help design pieces. So that custom design, whether it's an engagement ring, a baby gift, a gift of remembrance for family, those are the things that are special to us, because we get to work one-on-one with you to develop an idea, a one-of-a-kind piece that you're going to then have for generations. It's great to see the customer’s reaction when they see their finished piece become a reality. Just because it’s custom doesn't mean that it's expensive. There's so many different ways that we make things and different materials that we use, it really is a wide spectrum of prices. We embrace the diversity, the uniqueness, and the different personalities in the store because we have such a wide variety of people walking in here every day.