Chatila

The Chatila family has been setting stones since 1860, when George Chatila opened his first premises in Beirut. Chatila brought that trade to London in 1987, and the Old Bond Street salon has been one of the maison’s two principal showrooms ever since, the other still standing in the city where the house began.

Five generations is an unusual span in any trade and a rare one on this street, where most of the names above the doors now answer to a group. Chatila answers to the family. A third showroom opened in Riyadh in 2003, which tells you where the collectors are, and the London room sits between the two.

What high jewellery Old Bond Street actually means here

This is the end of the market where a piece is built around a stone rather than a stone dropped into a design. Important coloured gems, diamonds of real weight, single commissions and runs of one. Clients arrive with an occasion or an inherited stone and leave having agreed a drawing, not a purchase.

Why the window tells you nothing

The best pieces are almost never in it. At this level stones live in the safe and come out for a named appointment, so a passer-by sees a fraction of what the house holds. That is not secrecy for its own sake. It is insurance, and it is the reason to telephone before walking in.