A photograph appeared in a fashion magazine.
Orders increased.
Investors called.
Diana refused the first two because both wanted to push the company toward a customer profile that sounded suspiciously like wealthy, white, and already accepted.
She eventually took capital from people willing to accept her terms.
Luminous Designs would sell luxury.
It would not sell humiliation.
Employees were trained around a principle Diana had written herself.
Never estimate a person’s worth, intent, or buying power from clothing, race, accent, age, disability, vehicle, or occupation.
Ask what brought them in.
Listen.
Serve honestly.
Security concerns were handled through behavior, not appearance.
That principle was not marketing.
It came from experience.
When Diana was twenty-seven, she had entered a luxury jewelry store in Buckhead wearing jeans and an inexpensive coat.
She had money in her bank account.
Not enormous money.
Enough to buy the watch she had saved for.
A salesman looked at her, then continued serving someone who arrived after her.
Another employee suggested she might prefer a department store nearby.
When Diana finally asked directly to see the watch, the salesman told her there would be “financial requirements” before he removed it from the case.
A white couple beside her had been handling watches costing twice as much without being asked for anything.
Diana left.
She never forgot how small the experience made her feel.
Not poor.
Small.
Like the room had decided her value before she opened her mouth.
Years later, when Luminous Designs became large enough to have a formal employee handbook, Diana wrote one sentence in bold at the beginning of the customer service section.
NO CUSTOMER SHOULD HAVE TO REVEAL THEIR STATUS BEFORE RECEIVING THEIR DIGNITY.
The Beverly Hills flagship was supposed to represent that sentence better than any store in the company.
Diana had personally supervised the design.
Rodeo Drive location.
High ceilings.
Cream stone.
Warm brass.
Lighting calibrated carefully so diamonds showed fire without making the room feel like a laboratory.
The centerpiece was the Aurora Collection.
Rare stones.
Custom pieces.
Several designs based on sketches Diana had drawn herself.
The flagship generated extraordinary revenue, sometimes more than two million dollars in a strong month.
But Diana cared almost as much about another number.
Customer complaint patterns.
She made surprise visits.
Not because she enjoyed trapping employees.
Because scheduled executive visits were theater.
Everybody smiled.
Displays became perfect overnight.
Dress codes tightened.
Coffee stations sparkled.
She wanted to know what happened when nobody believed she was watching.
That Friday morning, Diana chose Beverly Hills.
She had flown into Los Angeles the night before for a vendor dinner and board meeting.
Her executive assistant assumed she would spend the morning at the regional office.
Instead, Diana woke at five, ran on the hotel treadmill, showered, put on a navy blazer, and took her Honda from long-term storage at a company facility.
The car looked absurd on Rodeo Drive.
That pleased her.
Valets ignored it.
Luxury SUVs slid past.
A man in a convertible glanced at the Civic as though Diana had accidentally driven into a private museum.
She parked several blocks away.
No driver.
No assistant.
No corporate entourage.
Before leaving the car, she touched her grandmother’s bracelet.
Habit.
Then she walked toward the flagship store.
Patricia Wittmann had been managing the location for eight months.
Diana had never met her in person.
That fact would later sound unbelievable to outsiders, but Luminous Designs had grown far beyond the days when Diana interviewed every employee herself.
Patricia had been recruited through the West Coast regional office after managing luxury retail boutiques in New York and Los Angeles.
She had excellent numbers.
Strong references.
Elegant presentation.
The Beverly Hills regional director had described her as “highly attuned to premium-client expectations.”
Diana had approved the hire from a summary packet.
Patricia had seen corporate photographs of Diana.
But most were professionally lit headshots taken several years earlier.
Different hair.
Different glasses.
Formal clothing.
More importantly, Patricia had never expected the CEO to walk into her store alone in a navy blazer and twenty-year-old Honda.
Expectation can make people blind even when the answer is in front of them.
Diana entered at 10:17.
The first thing she noticed was that one display case was slightly crooked.
Not badly.
Perhaps half an inch.
Most customers would never have seen it.
Diana did.
She had spent too many years arranging her own cases not to notice.
She did not fix it.