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