The beautiful thing about this country, no matter how un-chic you are, how empty your wallet, the stores on Madison Avenue still buzz you in. So we are walking past 940 Madison Avenue, a former Chase Manhattan bank, transformed by architect Peter Marino into the flagship for designer Bruce Hoeksema’s VBH uber-luxury line of bags and jewelry. Gorgeous place, but spooky. In fact, aside from the five staffers and security guards, VBH is post-Apocalyptic empty. Customer-wise, we are it. Still, we make our way to the bank’s former and still-thrillingly claustrophobic vault (see above), and we stop in front of these earrings. We don’t usually notice earrings--but these are special--peacock tails of glitter fanning out from Mexican opals. And, don’t laugh, we ask the very nice salesman the price.
“$300,000.”
“$300,000?”
“$300,000.”
VBH 940 Madison Avenue