Rob Bates and Victoria Gomelsky talk to Sara Beth Brown Prendeville, president of Brown & Co. Jewelers. Sara Beth shares her experience in the jewelry and watch industry—from childhood afternoons spent in her family’s jewelry store in lieu of daycare to bringing her knowledge from Shreve & Co. in San Francisco and Breitling in New York back to her family’s store. Hear how she grew into her current role of president, and learn about the mix they keep stocked in both store locations. Plus, get her hot take on lab-grown diamonds as well as the trends she’s seeing for the fourth quarter and the busy holiday season.

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Title sponsor: De Beers (adiamondisforever.com)

Show Notes
05:10 Sara Beth’s background
10:40 Brown & Co.’s watch business
12:35 Growing into her current role
16:20 Stocking for different clientele in two stores
19:20 Diamonds and the bridal business
22:00 Gold price and serving self-purchasing customers
25:30 Trends to watch for Q4

Episode Credits
Hosts: Rob Bates and Victoria Gomelsky
Producer and engineer: Natalie Chomet
Editor: Riley McCaskill
Plugs: @jckmagazine; adiamondisforever.com

Episode Transcript
This transcript has been abridged and edited for clarity.

Victoria:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Jewelry District…We have a wonderful guest: Sara Beth Brown Prendeville is president of Brown & Co. Jewelers. They have a beautiful store in Buckhead Village and a second store in Roswell, Georgia.

Sara Beth, thank you very much.

Sara Beth:
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Victoria:
The only time I’ve been to Atlanta in ages was to visit Swiss Watch Expo, which is a pre-owned specialist, but they’re based really close by. We went for dinner in Buckhead Village and I wandered past the windows of Brown & Co. It was just after closing, and I thought, Wow, this place looks beautiful.

And of course, you’ve got the Rolex boutique adjacent to it. Do you also have a Patek Philippe boutique there?

Sara Beth:
We do, yes.

Victoria:
Oh my! It was very beautiful and I was quite taken with lovely that whole village is. Brown & Co. is how old now?

Sara Beth:
53 years.

Victoria:
Was there a Buckhead Village when you were growing up?

Sara Beth:
No. My father started the company in ’74 in Roswell, at our current location. It’s our flagship. Then we added our second store in 2009 in Buckhead, but it was about a mile down the road in a freestanding building. We didn’t move to Buckhead Village until 2023. Buckhead Village is at least 10, 15 years old, but it’s gone through a number of ownerships and transitions.

Rob:
I remember when I went to the Atlanta Jewelry Show, my first jewelry show trip in the early ’90s. Buckhead was the hip spot. It’s probably, like a lot of these hip places, an expensive place now.

Sara Beth:
There was a Buckhead scene, and some of it still does exist, but a lot of the bars that were in the big go-to area is what Buckhead Village took over. So it’s transitioned quite a bit.

We’ve been there for a few years now, and it’s a fantastic place for us to be and to grow.

Victoria:
Are you primarily in Roswell?

Sara Beth:
I go back and forth between the stores. Our offices are in the Roswell store. However, that store is undergoing a gigantic renovation right now. I have an office in an office park right next door. I don’t like that sometimes I’m at the office in Roswell, but I don’t even go inside the Roswell store. It feels disconnected right now. So, I’m really excited to get my office back inside the retail location. Hopefully in the next month or two, I’ll be back.

Victoria:
Let’s back up a little. We’ve got a little bit of the history: Founded in 1974. And Rob unearthed this somewhere—that you’d talked about how the store growing up was like your daycare. So did you grow up cleaning showcases?

Sara Beth:
Yes, absolutely. I’m the youngest of five. And we all grew up working. When we were kids, I remember getting picked up from elementary school and going to the store. I would be in a back office doing homework or my cousins would be there after school and we’d be playing or cleaning counters, cleaning jewelry, helping out however we could. We were there a lot.

Rob:
Did all five kids go into the business?

Sara Beth:
All my siblings except for one have been in the jewelry industry and with Brown & Co. at one point or the other. We always say she’s the sane one. So two of my sisters and my brother were involved.

Everybody organically worked their way out. I always tell everyone, “Don’t worry, we all still love each other. We still get together for family holidays. Sometimes you can love your family more by not working with them and that’s okay.” I think that’s a very respectful statement.

Victoria:
For you, was it a foregone conclusion that eventually you’d end up in the family business, or did you think at some point you might try something else?

Sara Beth:
I did not think I was going to be in the family business. I loved it. I grew up in it. I worked every holiday since I was little. But I went to college at Auburn University thinking, “I have no idea what I want to do.” And my dad said, “Well, we need an accountant in the family.” And I was like, “All right, well, I like math. Sure, I’ll be an accountant.”

It’s funny because now I know myself more than I did in college, and I know accountants. I am not an accountant at all. So I was an accounting major for a year and a half. And then after that, I realized it was not for me. I studied abroad in Spain the following semester and changed my major to Spanish and business.

After college, I moved home for one summer before figuring out what was next. At that point, there were seven members of my family in the business. And I said, “I love you all, but I’m out.”

I knew I wanted to stay in the industry because I thought, “This is what I know. This is what I love. Why not do this and see what happens?” But I did not think it would be in Atlanta or with my family.

I went to gemology school in Carlsbad, then got a job at Shreve & Co. in San Francisco, which was awesome. I loved San Francisco, was not planning to leave at all. Then I got a phone call from Marie Bodman at Breitling. They were opening their first retail boutique in Manhattan. And I said, “Ok, I’ll join.”

I moved to Manhattan and worked for Breitling for about three and a half years. I loved it there. I wasn’t planning on leaving Manhattan, but then I met my now husband. We were looking to move in together, and to live the way you want to live in New York is not the easiest. That’s when my sister started recruiting me down to Atlanta.

So 2013 is when I moved back. Everyone always says, “That was so smart of you to go get experience to bring back to your family.” And I say, “Thanks. However, that was not the intention at all.”

Rob:
But did it help?

Sara Beth:
Yes. I learned so much from all my experiences between Carlsbad, San Francisco, and New York that I was able to bring back. It just wasn’t my intention. Who knows where I thought I’d be?

Rob:
It’s interesting that you were on the vendor side and the retailer side. You got to see it from both sides.

Sara Beth:
Yes, it was interesting for Breitling because it was retail. It was their first retail boutique ever. They had only been in wholesale. In hindsight, Marie Bodman knew what she was doing. She was looking for people that had in-depth retail experience. There were a couple of us that had grown up in the industry and family retail environments but had gone off on our own. She recruited a few of us to help solidify that retail environment and not make it so corporate.

She knew. I mean, obviously—she’s the one that brought that brand to the U.S. and understood what it took in a very personal, relationship-driven retail environment. So that was her way of kind of curating that within Breitling in New York.

Victoria:
And you, so when you got back in 2013, you’d had this brand experience with Breitling, a watch business. Was Brown & Co. already a Rolex dealer? What portion of your business now is jewelry versus watches? I’m always curious about that mix.

Sara Beth:
Yes. That’s a question I get asked a lot. It depends on the year, of course, but with how crazy watches have been the past five years, right now it’s about half of the business.

Rob:
And that’s up from before.

Sara Beth:
Right. And we always like to maintain a solid diversification of our categories because when it comes to our partners, sometimes you just never know. Who could have expected that Rolex and Patek Philippe could have the demand that they have now? And I always tell the team that there’s no way it’s going to last forever, and that’s OK, but we have to continue to focus on the foundation of our business. And the foundation was built on service and custom and jewelry.

So we have to keep that in mind and keep a strong balance. And I think doing that helps the watch business too.

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Victoria:
When you got back in 2013, were you working alongside your dad? What was your role and how did that grow into now president?

Sara Beth:
Great question. When I came back, my title was sales director because that was my thing. I was always in sales. I worked alongside one sister, Amy, and my dad. And yes, they were Rolex partners. A lot of different watch brands were already partners at Brown & Co., so it was interesting.

When I went from jewelry to just watches, I thought I was going to be so bored. I thought, “Am I doing the right thing?” I love jewelry. I like watches. But I came to find out it was the exact opposite because you realize the watch industry is nonstop. If you don’t keep up, you’re last.

But it also just taught me across the board that in any retail environment—you could really be selling anything—you can bring in a culture that is very unique from anybody else, in the way of being sure that when you step through the doors, every sense is awakened. And the way that you’re greeted. There are so many things.

I guess I’m trying to say that it really didn’t matter if I was just in watches, then going back to watches and jewelry because I learned so much about the actual retail environment and how important that experience is. For the client coming into the door, the experience is first and then eventually you will start talking about jewelry and watches because that’s why they came in the door.

So yes, I was sales director and it was an interesting time. We had a lot of very tenured sales associates, a lot of very tenured employees in general. I knew many of them for many, many years. At first coming in, some people were OK with it and some people were like, “Who does she think she is?”

But it was funny. I had the same experience at Shreve & Co. I was the young kid on the block, and I remember trying to study gemstones on the sales floor and even like organizing drawers and the team would be like, “What are you doing?” I’d say, “I’m just trying to learn.” I got very thick skin, let’s put it that way, after being on a sales floor like that with very tenured people. But the great thing was by the end of my time there, I was best friends with all of them. You really curate this relationship.

It was very similar coming back to Brown & Co.… We don’t have egos. I’m going do the work I have to do. And at the end of the day, if I put my head down, do things the right way, then everything will work out as it should. And that’s the mentality I’ve had since I joined the business. I never really thought, “Oh, I’m going to be president. I’m going to run this thing.” I always, of course, was driven to grow the business, but I wasn’t so focused on what I would be doing. I just was focused on growing the business and doing the right thing. And so, 13 years later, here we are.

Victoria:
How do the two stores differ? Do you tend to get a younger clientele in Buckhead and then a little bit more of an established customer [in Roswell], and then therefore, how does the selection differ—or not?

Sara Beth:
Yes, there is a younger audience in Buckhead. However, they’re still in Roswell. Roswell’s our flagship. There are a lot of generational clients in Roswell. So we have a lot of younger families, I would say, in the Roswell store, but then a lot of younger single people that are living in Buckhead.

We are on a weekly basis talking about the diversification of the product between the stores. We try to keep them pretty comparable, to be honest, because we want people to feel as though they’re not missing out on one thing from one store that they could be getting at the other store. But we do have a few jewelry designers that we have at one location, not at the other.

In Buckhead, that younger client is a little bit more fashion-forward—a little more dainty, smaller layering pieces. Not to say that we don’t have that at Roswell too, because we do, but Roswell tends to be a little more of a traditional style.

It’s ongoing, and that’s the beautiful thing. If something is not performing very well at one store like we thought it would, then we say, “Never mind, let’s move it up to Roswell,” or vice versa.

Victoria:
How big is the jewelry selection? Is it primarily designer-driven or do you have quite a bit of Brown & Co. signature pieces that you sell? What is the mix?

Sara Beth:
I would say it’s 50-50. We do have quite a few designer brands that you all know. But as soon as you walk into our Roswell store, the main section in the middle is all our Brown & Co. source jewelry. A lot of that is going to be your tried-and-true classic pieces that are our bread and butter because over the years, we’ve done a lot of research of ensuring that if I’m making a diamond stud, it’s going to be the perfect diamond stud, a diamond tennis necklace—all of those little details. And we’re extraordinarily particular on the quality as well.

But that’s our focus when it comes to the Brown & Co. jewelry. It’s all diamond fashion, colored gemstones, which we spoke about last year. And then we let the jewelry designers take care of the segment that is bold gold jewelry.

Rob:
Speaking of diamonds, I guess I feel obligated to ask you this: How do you feel about lab-grown versus natural? Do you sell lab-grown?

Sara Beth:
What’s a lab-grown?! We do not sell lab-grown diamonds. Yes, I have a strong opinion about it. We have drawn our line in the sand. People always ask, “You don’t even keep a few in the back just to make so and so happy?” The answer is no—we don’t have it at all. Not going to go there. Even if there’s a brand that starts carrying a particular collection that incorporates lab-grown diamonds, we do not buy that collection. We’re very particular on it. We believe in natural and don’t plan on changing that mindset.

Rob:
Do you get requests for it ever?

Sara Beth:
We get questions about it. I will say that. A lot of questions. But I will tell you nine times out of 10, if they’re in our store and we’re able to walk them through the whys behind it, they are going to leave with a natural diamond. And believe me, I know I’m leaving money on the table. I tell people all the time, I know, but it’s just not in our DNA and we’re not going to go there.

Victoria:
And in the bridal space, what do you find is resonating with your buyers then? Obviously, it’s all natural stones. We ask retailers this all the time, and most of them do sell both. And they’ve said their natural business tends to be bigger, more important stones. But are you selling 1 carat naturals as well to brides?

Sara Beth:
Yes. There’s such a misconception, honestly. I even tell my social team, we need to keep talking about this. Because in my head, it’s already out there. Everyone knows the value differentiation. But my friends are like, “No, I think you should still talk about it.”

Just last week I had this young couple walk in. I happened to be there, we start talking, and they were interested in lab-grown because they didn’t think that they could afford a natural diamond. After a long conversation, I found out their budget was $8,000 to $10,000. And I’m like, “What? Yes, that’s a fantastic budget.” So that’s where I think a big misconception comes into play.

So yes, we are still selling, across the board. Our average is about a 2 carat, which I think is amazing in the world we live in today that, the 2 carat engagement ring is normal, but I’ll take it. It’s great.

Victoria:
You mentioned the bold gold look earlier when we were talking about designers. I’ve been really curious to hear how, especially if you’re serving self-purchasing customers, primarily women, that category used to be about $2,500. Maybe it opened at $500 and you’d feel pretty comfortable up to $3,000. And now with the gold price, how has that category changed for you and how are you servicing that client?

Sara Beth:
I say leave it up to the designers to do the bold gold because obviously it’s expensive across the board. The only caveat there is that, when it’s a designer piece of jewelry, they control the pricing. There have been multiple price increases. Some of the brands waited as long as they could, which is great, but at the end of the day, they had to raise the prices.

It has been challenging in the designer segment, how large those price adjustments have been in such a short amount of time.

I might think, “Oh my gosh, this XYZ bracelet was $2,000, not that long ago. Now it’s $5,000. That’s a huge difference.” One thing we’ve found is that we were more concerned about that than the consumer. The majority of them are not coming in all the time, tracking a price of a specific designer piece of jewelry. You know what I mean? Those purchases are typically like, they come in, they want it, and that’s that. It doesn’t take them all that long.

For bridal, a diamond is a much longer purchasing process. So that’s been challenging.

I said that I depend on the designers to do bold gold. However, we have dived into gold fashion on our own because maybe we have pieces that are lighter weight, that are not going to be the same as a David Yurman bracelet that you love, and the weight of it is amazing. You’re looking for that style, but at a little bit friendlier price point. Yes, we have gotten into that market quite a bit.

But I’ll tell you, between tariffs and gold prices, raw materials, it has been a very interesting couple of years. Thankfully, with the bulk of our clientele, they’re at the point where everything’s expensive now. Everything has been raised. So, I think they just know that’s what they’re getting into. But it is something that is of quality. And if you take decent care of it, should last a lifetime.

Victoria:
The enduring asset aspect of gold offsets the nosebleed pricing.

You’re a great resource for the things that we think about all the time. Trend-wise, do you want to give us a quick hit on what you see trending in terms of styles, motifs, colors? Especially as we look to the fourth quarter.

Sara Beth:
Yes, the watch business has been fantastic. I love seeing more women appreciate fine timepieces. That is awesome. So that’s been a huge trend for us, particularly the ladies’ watches. Everyone’s getting an Apple Watch off their wrist when they put a cute outfit on, which I always joke about.

As far as jewelry goes, I think the tried-and-true. We have not seen any stop in diamond tennis bracelets, diamond tennis necklaces—the classics. But it’s got to be of quality. I can’t tell you how many times someone comes in, they bought something elsewhere and they don’t know what they got.

And layering. People are wearing a lot of jewelry right now, which is fantastic. Just having fun. This necklace for instance, I used to only wear by itself. And now I’m like, “Hell no, let’s go have fun.” Depending on what you’re doing, your mood, layer stuff with it.

Victoria:
What is it? It’s really cool.

Sara Beth:
It’s a Marco Bicego smoky quartz.

I think it’s layering, ladies’ watches, and your classic go-tos.

Any views expressed in this podcast do not reflect the opinion of JCK, its management, or its advertisers.

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