The Jewelry Pieces to Invest In, According to Expert Will Kahn

Welcome to our podcast, Who What Wear With Hillary Kerr. Think of it as your direct line to the designers, stylists, beauty experts, editors, and tastemakers who are shaping the fashion-and-beauty world. Subscribe to Who What Wear With Hillary Kerr on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Trends may come and go, but diamonds really are forever. "The demand for diamond earrings does not go away," Will Kahn says. As a jewelry consultant, editor, stylist, and contributor to Town & Country magazine, Kahn is very familiar with the lasting power of diamonds.

Kahn has spent the majority of his career working in the jewelry industry. Whether that's at places like Town & Country and W Magazine or as Moda Operandi's jewelry director, Kahn has made a name for himself as a leading expert on all things bling. Kahn also created an Instagram account, Will's Notebook, where he shares jewelry with his followers in a unique and original way. 

In the latest episode of Who What Wear With Hillary Kerr, Kahn shares his holiday gifting recommendations, the trends he's seeing in the jewelry space right now, and more. For excerpts from their conversation, scroll below.

Let's go back to the beginning of your career. I know—because I'm nosy and also have known you for a long time—that you started at W Magazine in the accessories department, but I have no idea how you ended up there. Talk to me a little bit about those days.

Not to cite other podcasts on a podcast, but when I was kind of thinking about how I got to where I got. It reminded me of that question on Las Culturistas: What moment in the culture led you to realize that culture is for you? My moment was LC [Lauren Conrad] walking into the doors of Teen Vogue in the L.A. office. From that moment on, I was like, "This is what I got to do." I don't know why. It didn't look particularly fun. Well, it kind of did. At the time, it seemed glamorous and it was just like, "This is what I have to do. I don't really understand it. I don't know what they're doing, but this is what I'm going to do."

Reading The Devil Wears Prada also in that time period, I was like, "I need to be that. I have to be rolling a rack of jeans somewhere in a glamorous office while wearing tight pants. That is what I need to do." That is kind of a very superficial way of how I got to where I am in that I just was mesmerized by that world and I had to be a part of it. I didn't really understand it, but I had to be a part of it. I just really aggressively went after internships, because I just was like, "I guess that's how you do this. I'm going to be an intern like LC." You had to work your way up, because Teen Vogue was not going to have me immediately. My first internship was at Life & Style Weekly. 

I also just feel like the encyclopedic knowledge that you have to have of the market, which is always changing… What a great experience in terms of education.

One hundred percent. I still recall all of these amazing references that they pulled. If I'm doing a shoot now and I want hair, it always goes back to these 10 or so shoots that were my favorite. And I can remember all of the hair references specifically. I loved W [Magazine] and it was kind of where I thought my whole career would be. To progress in accessories, you had to become the accessories director. To be the accessories director, you had to learn jewelry. Jewelry was the master's degree of accessories departments. I figured I needed to learn jewelry and I think if you want to learn something, go to the best. Town & Country is the Bible of jewelry. There's a woman there, Stellene Volandes, who is the queen of jewelry. I just really wanted to learn jewelry from her and basically go back to W [Magazine] eventually and become the accessories director there.

Once I got to Town & Country, I ended up loving it there and falling in love with jewelry, and I ended up staying there for seven years.

Talk to me about your Instagram, Will's Notebook.

At its core, it is just a curation of beautiful things that I like. First and foremost, that's jewelry. Other things come into play, too. Home and luggage and hotels and whatever. The original idea obviously was just a snapshot into my process and my life as an editor. It was a process that I thought would kind of demystify and simplify jewelry a bit. It was basically kind of how I learned jewelry. I didn't know anything about jewelry, didn't take a jewelry class. It was just going on appointments with jewelers and asking questions like, "What is this blue stone?" It was just was all these notes that I thought that people would be interested in, because I was interested in them.

The notebook format morphed into what I consider as an online magazine or an Instagram magazine. Sometimes it's market pages, sometimes it's one necklace, and just kind of a collage of everything I like and what I think you might like.

Talk to me about [your other project] The Vintage Notebook. Have you seen any specific trends in what sells? Is it different from some of the stuff that you would expect?

The demand for diamond earrings does not go away. People just want a big diamond earring and they want the bigger the better for the lowest price. Like a stud or little drop earrings.

I've fallen in love, personally, with Victorian jewelry because there's a lot of meaning and sentimentality behind it. We sell a lot of diamond crescents at the Vintage Notebook and they're so cool.

I'm hoping you can give me just a handful of suggestions for our listeners who are looking for some help and guidance in their holiday shopping. Let's start with the big statement or investment piece. What would you recommend?

Knowing the market, I just feel like people, when they're going big and they're going investment, it's the following: It's a gold watch. Everyone wants a gold watch. You want to start out with a stainless steel watch, which is amazing. [It's] a great first gift for someone, but an entry-level gift. The gold watch is where we're at. That's the holy grail. What's the king of gold watches? Rolex. [Cartier watches are] amazing for women. Any one of them [are] amazing, gorgeous, [and] can't be beat. Cartier watches are [at] the top.

A, It's the best fashion look in my opinion, but B, it's come of age and now it's kind of the top watch. I think we've taken over as more casual watchgoers and said, "No. Cartier is the best."

You also might want a tennis necklace or tennis bracelet. Those are the other holy grails that every woman, in my perspective, wants.

What about some last-minute gifts or crowd-pleasers that are more modestly priced or moderately?

A really good gift I like that's more modest would be little drop earrings. I think there are such good ones out there. I'm picturing someone buying this for a girlfriend or a mother-in-law. It packs a lot of punch.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Next, check out our interview with Cult Gaia founder, Jasmin Larian Hekmat.