The Bench Jewellery Store

The Bench Jewelry Store is listed in Chilliwack Proper, in the old grid where the city's jewelry trade has stayed put while most other kinds of retail moved out to the malls. Jewellers are one of the few categories where that is true, and it is not sentiment that kept them there.

The reason is repair. Resizing, restringing, watch work, stone setting and turning an inherited piece into something wearable are jobs a display case cannot do, and they are what keeps several shops around Five Corners and along Wellington Avenue in business rather than in a shopping center.

One thing genuinely worth knowing about buying jewelry in this city is that a few independent makers work out of studios rather than shopfronts, selling by appointment or through local markets. If you want something made rather than something bought, the shopfronts are only part of the picture. For a repair the downtown blocks are the obvious starting point, and walking them beats searching, since the shops sit close enough together to compare in an afternoon. Take the piece with you when you go. Anyone doing this work will want it in the hand before quoting, and what can be done with it is rarely settled over a phone.