Creative designs set jeweller apart
The following is an article written by Joanne McGarry, which appeared in Jewellery World Magazine

André Pommier hopes that his clients admire their engagement rings because they helped design them, not because of how much - or how little - they paid for them. He has been doing custom work for his Cornwall, Ont. family business, Pommier Jewellers Ltd., since 1986, and believes it's the key to maintaining the firm's long-standing reputation in the eastern Ontario community. Although the store carries a full line of jewellery, watches and some giftware, custom work comprises about 80 per cent of the business. "I try to include the customer in the process; usually he asks for something that looks 'like this' so we go over styles, look at loose diamonds and get some ideas. Then I give him a Diamond Information Centre brochure to help him learn more about diamonds, and get an idea of what the budget is. People admire the finished product because it's unique, and because they were in on the design process."

Some of those engagement ring clients have grandmothers who got their rings from Pommier's, as well. While both the inventory and custom designs are very much of the 90s, the business itself goes back several generations. Those large, rich-looking mahogany display cases were brought in decades ago when an uncle closed his jewellery store in Quebec and joined the Cornwall concern.

André Pommier's grandfather apprenticed in watchmaking in France but spent most of his career in the Hull area, where he married a Canadian. Five sons became jewellers, and eventually owned stores in towns in Ontario and Quebec. It was during the depression that one son - André's grandfather - closed the store in Hull and moved to Cornwall, where the business climate had remained fairly good due to a thriving pulp and paper mill. Armande Pommier jewellers opened in 1937, and though the business has moved four times since then, it has remained in Cornwall.

A carefully-kept scrapbook shows an ad from the 1940s emblazoned "show your love with a flawless diamond." The price was $45, and the phone number, "29". André's father, Georges Pommier, opened the House of Gifts in the Cornwallis Hotel in 1952. He later bought into partnership with Harold Warren of Warren's Jewellers. "Mr. Warren wanted a partner to help him because he was disabled, so dad worked out a deal with him and the store became Warren and Pommier for a time. Later my Uncle Jean closed in Rouyn-Noranda and joined them. The mahogany showcases came with him."

Mr. Warren later retired, but Jean stayed on 15 years, until his death. Georges Pommier and his wife maintained the store, until her death in 1986, and Georges remains active in the business while leaving day-to-day management to André. The staff of eight includes Ann Fortier, who has been with Pommier's for 34 years.

Throughout the years, the jewellery portion of the business increased. Growing up around the shop, it was only natural for André to study goldsmithing when he attended George Brown College in Toronto, and while he had assumed he would go into the family business eventually, he was actually working for A & A Jewellers when his father phoned him to say a bank building was up for sale and should they buy it?

"I was working in a good place with good people at A & A, and I'd been doing more and more interesting things. So I was sorry to leave. I trekked around Europe for a while and went to the big shows and studios while I was there. But I decided to go back to Cornwall and go into the business."

The store was moved across town with the help of relatives, friends and customers who all pitched in for the big day. With the help of a designer, the Pommiers have tried to invest their 1,600 sq. ft., main street store with its traditional image by keeping the showcases and using velvet on the display beds, and using track lighting and spotlighting. The windows mea-sure 51/2 ft. in width and are 12 ft. high. "They're a bit difficult to work with but they stand out." André's sister, Maryse, does the decorating.

André visits numerous area high schools to design and produce class rings and finds it a good way to interest younger people in quality jewellery as well as to maintain a profile in the community. The store ran a major promotion last winter, "The Great Diamond Giveaway", which featured skill-testing questions about diamonds on radio. Those who phoned in the correct answers got a chance at the grand-prize draw, which brought lots of media as well as new business possibilities to the store. The prize was a diamond anniversary-style band. The store also advertises regularly in local media as well as the regional edition of a wedding magazine, and gives presentations on jewellery and giftware for Welcome Wagon. And not all the custom work is for wedding jewellery. There are also a fair number of requests for updates of antique pieces or of pieces neither old enough to be antique nor new enough to be modern.

Like most independents, Pommier's does its best to offer good service and that means lots of giftwrapping around Christmastime. During one particularly hectic year, a beautiful gold chain being given to a man by a woman was sent to be gift wrapped at just about the same time as a very nice pair of earrings being given to a woman by a man.

"Well, it was just lucky the man who was supposed to get the chain happened to be a friend. He phoned by dad on Christmas and said, 'Georges, you'll never believe my beautiful new pair of earrings'. After everyone had had a good laugh we got the chain to him. We never did hear from the person who got the other chain, but at least we know she got a nice gift!"

And while any jeweller has a healthy fear of being robbed, Pommier employees can only wonder if they'll be able to rise to the occasion quite the way Georges did.

"Dad was working overtime on a Friday back in the 50s, and there was noone else in the store. A man came in and said he was "just looking" so Dad went back to what he was doing. All of a sudden there was a knife being held to his gut and all he could think was "Oooh, no, that's going to hurt!" Dad somehow managed to calm the guy down by saying "I'll let you go, I'll give you a good 20 minutes start before I call the police"... he just kept talking and the guy got scared and ran off. Dad collapsed; by the way he had no insurance at that time!"

In the five years since he joined the family firm, André has been active with the Canadian Jewellers Association, serving on the Retail Committee and the board of governors of the Canadian Jewellers Institute. He has also personally backed the CJA's fight to repeal the excise tax on jewellery, writing letters to his local MP and Minister of Finance Michael Wilson.

He flatly refuses to do business on Sun-days. "If you're in a family business, you're already working six days a week," he points out. "I will never open on a Sunday." Even for retailing in general, he doubts Sunday openings will prove to be a significant business generator. "As a friend of mine who did open a few Sundays in December said, the people who came would have come on a Monday or Tuesday otherwise."

As for Pommier's, André believes the fact that it's a family business is a big part of the store's character, and he hopes it stays in family hands. At 27, he is still single but hopes to marry and have children who will go into the business, too.

Jewellery World, April 1991

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