New downtown Hinsdale jewelry store sparkles

HINSDALE – The Solaris Jewelry store in downtown Hinsdale may be new to town, but the family running the business has been selling precious gemstones for more than 40 years.

Jeweler Damir Missbrenner said his father Aurel started the business aboard cruise ships, selling precious gemstones to the patrons of the ships.

Back in those days, Missbrenner explained people on the cruisers were spending money hand over fist.

“People just couldn’t spend it fast enough,” he said.

But with the clientele aboard the ships evolving from wealthy couples to families, Missbrenner said his sales slowed and he decided to head to port.

After scouring the area for potential storefront, Missbrenner and his son, Deyan, who also helps run the family business, found a Hinsdale location. After five weeks at their new location at 9 E. First St., the owner is in good spirits.

“I think our product so far in the first five weeks has been very well received,” he said.

While Solaris is a jewelry store in a village that already has multiple jewelry stores, their products are a different variety than what is already offered. Solaris does not sell many diamonds. Instead they focus on colored gemstones – Emeralds, sapphires, rubies and the like.

“We fit in with other jewelry stores because we provide what they don’t, and we don’t provide what they provide,” Missbrenner said. “We stay away from diamonds because we can’t compete with diamonds.”

But by that same standard, most other local jewelry stores cannot compete with the wide array gems offered at Solaris, according to Missbrenner. While other stores may have a few items that are not diamonds, when a person looks around the Hinsdale shop their field of view is filled with color.

Missbrenner said most people who come in the first time don’t buy anything. Not because they don’t want to but because they are so surprised with what they find.

“People are amazed,” he said. “The biggest question I have is ‘are these real? Because if we’re selling them for $3,000, [at] big name jewelry stores something like this would cost $15,000.”

He said people also are not used to seeing any variety in colored gemstones, so they tend to mull over what they like before returning.

To add to the unique feel of the store, most of the gemstones are open to the air, instead of inside cases

“I feel you need to touch gemstones to really see how you feel about [them],” Missbrenner said.

To compliment the jewelry that adorns the shelves in the store, the walls offer space for paintings, which he has filled with reproduced works from famous artists.

Missbrenner said the art provides a feeling the store aims to instill – Solaris seeks to be a store that offers the best quality.

“Lets be more of a store that offers finer things,” he said. “Like fine paintings, oil paintings, real paintings, paintings by well-known artist like Picasso or Degas and the likes, as well as my own work.”