Korman Fine Jewelry, a family-owned business in Austin, is aiming to relocate and cut the ribbon on a new 11,000 square foot Rolex-anchored flagship this summer after a ground-up construction project.
The fast-growing Texan city is drawing in wealth and investment from across the country, not least from Houston-based Zadok Jewelers, which opened its own 11,000 square foot multibrand showroom, also with Rolex, in May.
As the watch-loving scene in Austin builds, Rob Corder sat down with Kat and Larry Stokes, owners of Korman Fine Jewelry, to find out what they have planned with their new store.
WATCHPRO: We are meeting to talk about your new flagship showroom opening this summer in Austin, but let’s set the scene with a quick history of Korman Fine Jewelers.
LARRY STOKES: We are celebrating 52 years as a business. Our founder Russell “Rusty” Korman started right on the drag of Austin, Texas, which is a really special place outside the University of Texas. He started on a street market outside the main venue and would offer beads and silver jewelry.
He moved from retail into wholesale within a year of getting started on the drag, supplying about 45 other stallholders with the beads and twisters he had been selling.
He expanded back into retail with a small store in Dobie Mall and moved location a number of times to serve some of the most vibrant parts of Austin including Congress, which is a hotspot for arts and entertainment and Burnet, an up-and-coming area where we are now.
We are really excited we are going to talk about the move to 29th and Lamar, which is just north of downtown and just west of the university and right in the sweet spot of Austin.
WATCHPRO: There is a lot of buzz around Austin as a great place to live and work. How would you describe the city today?
LARRY STOKES: This week we have South by Southwest, which brings together leaders from film, media, the arts, technology and innovation. It is running as we speak, which brings a huge amount of energy and excitement. It’s great for us because the city is buzzing and people are dropping into the store to see us.
WATCHPRO: We constantly hear about the great migration from California and the Northeast to the business-friendly state of Texas, so I guess you have found yourselves in the right place at the right time.
LARRY STOKES: I come from a family jeweler in East Texas where I worked for 13 years but the opportunity for my wife Kat and I to buy Korman was too good to resist and the founder Rusty sold the company to us seven years ago. When we took on the business in 2018 there were so many things we loved, but particularly Korman’s link to the city and the University of Texas.
When we move to Lamar, we will be building on our history in fine jewelry and watches, particularly with our longstanding key partners like Rolex, Omega and Tudor. We have been bringing in other brands as we build up to the move including Blancpain, Grand Seiko, Hamilton, Oris and most recently exciting independents including Ressence and Trilobe.
There has been this build up of Austin as a city, and we have invested in our future right alongside it over the last eight years as we approached this big move.
WATCHPRO: We are kind of up-to-date now, so let’s talk about the new flagship you are moving to this summer.
LARRY STOKES: We have taken over historic corner on 29th and Lemar, which is in a green belt area of Austin.
It had a dilapidated building on it that we bought with a dream to bring life back to that location and create a venue that is there for the people of Austin or anybody visiting the city.
We are building a destination where we are able to tell stories about watchmaking. It will be split around 50/50 between jewelry and watches, and we want to bring the best of the best of both to Korman.
As we spoke about earlier, everybody is heading to Austin, so we are creating a venue that delivers a special experience and a place to share special moments.
We are all-in on this project in terms of location, luxury, convenience. The partners we have brought in alongside us to bring it to life fully believe in our concept.
We want this to be different, which is a trait that is much-admired in Austin.
When you see the venue and the placement you will be intrigued by the outside but the magic really happens inside, which is where Kat comes in.
KAT STOKES: We really want to create an environment that would build community, which brings together jewelry lovers and watch collectors in one space to share their passion for horology, fine jewelry or the stories behind diamonds.
We already have these meetings and it is inspiring to see some of the new relationships that are formed in them. Many of them hang out outside our events now.
The new venue, The Jewel House, will be an even more inviting space. It will be larger, so we can bring more people in, but it will be designed to bring them in to nerd-out in the most unpretentious way about their passions.
There is no snobbery or one-upmanship here. People are just delighted to see when somebody has something fabulous on their wrist. That’s special to watch.
We are already doing this, but The Jewel House will help us to amplify what we do to even more people.
LARRY STOKES: We have 6,000 square feet in our current showroom. We have watchmakers and jewelers inhouse. It is amazing already, but we can take it to the next level.
We are blessed to be in Austin with high profile clients from across different fields, and we bring them together with watchmakers and brand presidents whenever we can at events and we see how exciting it is for them.
We’ve done these events at places like Soho House Austin, but we are really looking forward to being able to host them in our new showroom as well.
We will still do events outside when the opportunity seems right. For example, we have the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, which will hold a Formula 1 Grand Prix in October. We have the Austin City Limits music festival twice per year.
We will keep our presence at those events, but also bring many more in house to our three-storey, 11,000 square foot showroom.
WATCHPRO: Do you have an opening date in mind?
LARRY STOKES: We are hopeful for June, but we are saying it will be sometime this summer to give ourselves a bit of wiggle room.
WATCHPRO: How are the brands reacting to this opportunity to work with Korman?
LARRY STOKES: There is a lot of buzz and we have a lot of partners that have come on board in just the last year. We have had a lot more leads and calls from brands that want to come on board now they are hearing about our plans.
WATCHPRO: It is interesting you are bringing indies like Ressence and Trilobe into the new showroom.
LARRY STOKES:I love both brands. Ressence is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, and I really connect with Benoît Mintiens’ vision for the brand.
When I wear Ressence, I get so many comments because it is so different to any other watch. Some kids even think it is a smartwatch because if the way it looks.
WATCHPRO: Are you hoping to bring in more indies?
KAT STOKES: Austin is a very tech-driven city right now and a lot of our clients are inspired by innovation.
They love classics like an Omega, Patek or Omega, but when we introduce them to independent brands they love the stories behind them, the people and the fact that they are different.
We want Korman to be a place where watch collectors come to enhance their knowledge and their collections and we think these indies are really innovative and interesting to them.
We also listen to our clients, which is why we recently took on Grand Seiko. We have typically worked with Swiss watchmakers, but we looked at Grand Seiko because that is what our customers are talking about.
We have to stay in tune with our community so that we have more to offer them than the bankers from Rolex, Omega and Cartier.
WATCHPRO: How will the showroom look and what will clients experience?
LARRY STOKES: We are trying to avoid that feeling of a duty-free space with rows of branded shop-in-shops.
We took the first step with our brands by presenting them with a vision of a truly beautiful store that we designed after listening to what our clients want.
We have found that a better approach than just waiting for the brands to tell us what they want, and they have responded positively because they know that we have the knowledge of watch lovers in Austin.
That process allowed us to create the store in a way that still gives brands their identity, not least through their watches, but it will be more like a home that we love and our friends love to come to.
We are moving away from speaking to clients over countertops. Everything will be done together, we want to build great connections. We see this in high luxury stores around the world and we are learning from the best that we see.
WATCHPRO: Are you focusing on pre-owned watches at all?
LARRY STOKES: There is a strong trend here of people wanting to come in and trade-in one watch for another. That is a collaboration where they are comparing what they have in their collection with what we have in ours.
KAT STOKES: We feel retail has evolved, particularly since covid, but even before then. That is why we have partnered with local architect Michael Hsu, which is best-known for designing hotels and restaurants, because retail is much more about hospitality than transactions.
We have got rid of the cash registers and prefer people to come in, relax in a luxurious environment, and spend time with us building better relationships. In Austin it is about understated luxury and showing people something special.
WATCHPRO: I notice you are not wearing a starched collar and tie as we speak. Is it dress-down day?
KAT STOKES: Nobody wears a tie. Austin is not that kind of place.
WATCHPRO: We have spoken about some of the brands you have brought on for this move, but let’s talk about your anchor brand, Rolex. I hear what you have said about Austin residents appreciating something new and different, but there is also nothing with quite the same pulling power as a Submariner or Daytona that has barely changed in half a century.
LARRY STOKES: Rolex has been an important part of my journey in the watch industry. I grew up in a multibrand store that had Rolex so I bleed green in that sense.
The best examples of how Rolex is presented around the world are where people can come and talk about their passion for watches and enjoy the experience, whether or not they are there to buy.
Our showroom will have a Rolex living room, service centre, CPO lounge and space for presentations. We have seen how hard Rolex is working to make the watches we need to fulfil the dreams of our clients, and that is what we want to deliver from the first time we meet through to the day when we have their watch ready to collect.
It is all about keeping the dream alive. I do not think we would be in this position without Rolex. We have aligned with what they are doing by creating an environment that is every bit as special as their watches.
WATCHPRO: We have seen a trend across the world where retailers are curating their brand portfolio down as close as possible to just Rolex and Patek Philippe (since AP went almost entirely DTC). But it has always struck me that jewelers are giving up the sovereignty of their family businesses when they become so reliant on just two brands. What you are describing feels more in tune with the way watch lovers think.
LARRY STOKES: If we were all about numbers, somebody would have told me years ago to stop spending money and come to my senses. But it has not been numbers and business logic that has brought us to where we are today, it is passion and belief in our community. This project may not make sense on paper. It is a passion project.
WATCHPRO: How is the market right now? The American market has been the powerhouse that has saved the luxury watch world from a much more difficult year in 2024, but is that still the case as we speak today [the interview took place before Watches and Wonders and before the President Trump tariff announcements]?
LARRY STOKES: It is passion that drives me, not so much the numbers. Our brand partners are more rational, so I am sure they are looking at the relative strength of the American market when they make decisions over allocations of watches to different countries, which is good for us right now and we feel super-blessed.
We do not take that fortune for granted. If we did, we would put our money in the bank and leave it there rather than reinvesting it as we are now.
KAT STOKES: Right now we feel the market is just as strong as the past few years. We have not seen any indicators that lead us to change course.
Our aim is still to keep bringing great watches to Austin and sharing them with our clients in the best possible environment so that they build the best collections they can.
WATCHPRO: What’s next for you and Korman?
KAT STOKES: We are in the middle of a big rebrand in conjunction with this move. We have built a lot of equity and trust in our community but we want to extend that relationship-building beyond Austin so that when people come here from around the country or beyond, they know that visiting The Jewel House [by Korman] will be a great thing do while they are here.
There is always something happening: music, celebrations, birthday cakes. Our motto is “Celebrate Everyday”.