For the biggest, boldest bling, A-listers and billionaires have turned to one man for the last 30 years. And for the most complicated watches in the game? Still the same man.
His name is Jacob Arabo, although you may have heard him referred to as "Jacob the Jeweler" in rap songs by Kanye West or 50 Cent. His clientele is a who's-who of the international elite and Hollywood stars, from Cristiano Ronaldo to Jay Z and Beyoncé. The story of his rise through the luxury jewelry industry is, like his designs, larger than life.
Business Insider spent an afternoon with Arabo to learn just how this entrepreneurial Soviet émigré scaled the heights of the over-the-top jewelry and watchmaking business. It's the story of a bold outsider becoming the ultimate insider — and it's filled with diamonds.
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The first thing you need to know about Arabo is that he lives the luxury life of his clients. But that's been a long time in the works. Born in Uzbekistan, he emigrated with his family to New York at the age of 14, settling down in Forest Hills, Queens.
With a struggling family to help support, Arabo made the decision to drop out of school at 16 and attend a jeweler's trade school in Brooklyn instead. The first piece he ever created was a brass jewelry box, which won him the class design competition.
The rest, as they say, is history. He finished the course in record time, and was quickly set up at a local Jewish wholesale jewelry factory that made mass-market pieces for department stores.
He lied about his age, pretending to be 18 so he could start earning a salary, which was just $125 a week.
"I was hungry to get a job," Arabo said.
But the repetitive factory experience didn't cut it for Arabo. "I knew that I had something in me, that I could do this," he said. He started crafting his own designs, and worked with a salesman to get them onto the market.
When he works on designing a piece, he typically creates a wax model of it first. Here are some recent examples of earring models, as well as a catalogue of early-stage sketches on photographs.
Soon, he was making more than $1,500 a week — more than 10 times his starting salary — and running a makeshift workspace out of his bedroom at his family home in Queens. He recruited some of his peers from jewelry school to assist in the fledgling business.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider