Mining for diamonds

Jacob Arabo, better known as Jacob the Jeweler, has been heralded for nearly two decades as the diamond jewelry and timepiece designer of choice for many of the music industry's elite. His veritable list of clientele includes celebrities such as Ashanti, Lenny Kravitz and 50 Cent. But now, Arabo has made it easier for everyday consumers to purchase his famous jewelry. For the first time, Arabo has opened a retail store in Manhattan—a flagship Jacob & Co. boutique.

Located on East 57th Street just one and a half blocks from Fifth Avenue, the 1,200-sq.-ft. store is in the heart of Manhattan's shopping district. "Every company needs to evolve and continue moving forward," says Jim Haag, managing director at Jacob & Co., New York. "Jacob's business grew to a point where to broaden his clientele and draw a bigger customer base, he needed to open a retail store in the luxury district in New York. He wants to keep his core business, but then also enhance and broaden it to continue growing."

In addition to many hip-hop artists, Arabo's new store welcomes residents of Manhattan's Upper East Side, Midtown tourists and 20-somethings in jeans and T-shirts. "Every other jewelry store on the Avenue has so much formality," Haag observes. "Customers feel as though they better be wearing a suit and tie when they walk in." For Jacob & Co., not only are a suit and tie not required, shoppers may be better suited to shop in hardhats and excavation gear. The entire store is designed to look and feel like the inside of a diamond mine.

"The diamond mine concept provides consumers with the ultimate treasure hunt that is fun, familiar and can always result in a great find at the end of the journey," says Peter Arnell, chairman and chief creative officer at New York-based Arnell Group, the lead design and architecture firm for the project. The diamond mine structure begins with an exterior facade featuring striated cladding, and continues through to the interior walls and displays, all milled to mimic the natural rock strata found in diamond mines. "Jacob worked well with Peter [Arnell] in coming up with a design that reflected the company—edgy, innovative and on the edge of design. The store needed to reflect that. Peter really understood Jacob and created something in tandem with the personality of the brand," Haag says.

To create the striated walls, the design team turned to Corian, a surfacing product described as the architectural equivalent of Play-Doh. "Corian starts out as flat, thick and long, and then turns into whatever you want. You can cut into it, bend it or shape it," says Joe Rofrano, regional commercial manager at Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont, the manufacturer of Corian. "The designers really are not limited in their creativity and what they want the end result to look like." In the Jacob & Co. installation, the striations were created by digitally carving the Glacier White Corian using a Computer Numeric Control (CNC) routing technique. "We received drawings from the Arnell group of what the design was going to look like," says Rofrano. "We then took it to our fabricator, Evans & Paul, who programmed the CAD software to the drawing. Then, the Corian was put on the CNC equipment, which was computerized from the CAD, and the machinery began cutting the Corian to the design."

The store's interior walls and displays also jut in and out in order to conjure images of the angular walls of a mine. These angles were accomplished through thermal forming, a process in which Corian is warmed to a pancake-like texture and then wrapped around a mold. "Once the Corian cools, it accepts the shape of the mold. You have a shape, a corner, an angle, etcetera, and at that point, it is hard again and you can glue or attach to anything you want," Rofrano says.

From the exterior facade to the interior of the store, the striated, angular surface appears as one continuous material that wraps the building; however, more than 100 sheets of Corian, each generally 30 in. wide by 12 ft. long by 0.5 in. thick, were actually used in the design. The sheets were both hard seamed, which refers to gluing the sheets together with liquid Corian, and soft seamed, which uses silicone, to create the monolithic look.

Glass cases for the jewelry are built into the wall surface, making shoppers feel as though they are looking at diamonds that are still embedded in the walls of a mine. Instead of interrupting the innovative design by placing handles on the casefronts, the displays use motorized glass panels, which open and close with the swipe of a card. The motors are also hidden behind the Corian, panels of which can be removed if Jacob & Co. employees need to reach a malfunctioning motor.

In addition to the Corian, white dominates the other design elements of the retail space. Quartz agglomerate tile, specified in white, is featured as the flooring, and white chairs are spread throughout the sales floor, allowing for in-depth discussion about the product.

In the back of the store—past Arabo's office, which is also located on the main floor—is a VIP lounge, which functions as a casual den for Jacob & Co. customers. The lounge features 50 flatscreen televisions, warm cherry flooring and a custom-designed aquarium. "The lounge adds to the informality and the casual nature of the store," Haag notes. "It almost feels like you're going in to see a neighbor." Patrons here, or in one of the two other private rooms adjacent to the lounge, are usually waiting to see Arabo himself—who helps with custom orders.

Arabo is frequently asked about his retail store expansion plans, but part of the allure of the brand is Arabo himself. "If he opens too soon, too fast and in too many locations, that allure will get watered down," Haag says. "Our feeling is to solidify our business presence here, then we'll look around at other locations." One could say that with his first retail store as stunning as this, Arabo is well on his way to making his presence become as strong as the diamonds he is known for.