Downton at Tiffany

I have loved watching Downton Abbey and can’t but help to see my Summer at Tiffany through that prism, with Tiffany as our “Abbey,” and center. Posh and elegant, it was the place that you vicariously wanted to be and to return to, like home. It had its own “Upstairs” set: the President, Vice President, “Old Man Tiffany,” and the polished salesmen (the good–Mr. T.C.–and the bad–Mr. Herdman–as well as our friends, Mr. Scott and Mr. Myers and the diamond salesman, Mr. Hutchison) as well as the intrigue and celebrity sightings. The “Downstairs” were Tiffany’s unseen employees, the employees in the shipping room, the repairmen, the employees’ elevator men, the secretary and the nurse (my confidante). Like Downton Abbey, it was “Downstairs” where you heard the gossip and history of the good old days and as Tiffany’s pages, we interacted with both “Upstairs” and “Downstairs” more than anyone at Tiffany. And while we had our cozy little apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, in many ways the seven story Tiffany store became our home that long ago summer, from the locker to the pearl and diamond room and our colleagues were very much our own close knit Tiffany family.