Couture: The New Candy Store

Celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe was here on business. Jill Zarin and Bethenny Frankel of "Real Housewives of New York" were here looking for their 16th minute. But Candy Spelling was at Couture, the luxury jewelry trade show at Wynn Las Vegas, because there's no other place she'd rather be.

"I really do love jewelry," says one of the most famous wives and notorious mothers in Hollywood. In case there's any doubt, she adds, "I really do. I love to look at it, feel it, touch it. I just love it."

And right now a pair of $320,000 emerald drop earrings at de Grisogono have her spellbound. But so does a $189,600 cocktail ring of behemoth proportions and a $450,000 diamond-covered lipstick watch that "isn't about telling time," a de Grisogono representative informs Spelling whose jewelry collection occupies two rooms in her 70,000-square-foot home.

"Well, of course it isn't," Spelling says, watching the light catch the watch's glimmer. "It's about the diamonds."

This observation makes both women giddy with laughter, but the fun has a deadline. Spelling is five minutes late for an appointment with Kwiat and getting her out of a jeweler's trade show space doesn't come easy. Not for Spelling nor the jeweler. It explains why Couture -- where more than 200 globally hailed designers, brands and retailers meet once a year -- is Candy's candy store.

She attends in search of goodies for her, but also for her friends who rely on Spelling's trained eye. In an attempt to ensure she and her late husband didn't get "cheated," Spelling enrolled in a gemology course with the Gemology Institute of America (GIA) years ago. If her extensive jewelry jargon doesn't get the point across, she drops the GIA bomb on eager jewelers. It has the same effect as grease-lined fingernails with mechanics: Don't even try it.

In her recently released book, "Stories from Candyland," Spelling gives Las Vegas several shout outs. It's the city where she struck a $100,000 jackpot (the lucky keep getting luckier) and where she's been making cameos at JCK for the past 18 years to remedy her jewelry "illness," as she refers to it.

Although Spelling's love for jewelry is well known, she makes a note not to bedeck herself in excess. "I go through phases," she explains. "Right now, less is more." Her minimalist approach during a maximum recession is no coincidence.

As she strolls the convention halls of Wynn Las Vegas, Spelling easily blends in with the buyers and exhibitors. She wears an ice blue silk blouse, crocodile leather flats and totes a snakeskin Prada clutch. A dangly, colorful sapphire necklace hangs below her bust and drop diamond earrings adorn her unpierced ears. ("My mother thought it wasn't nice to have holes in your ears.") But the zeros that have become synonymous with her name are the reason an ambitious jeweler has interrupted Spelling's stroll.

"Excuse me madam, you don't know me, but I definitely know you."

Her handlers whisk her away as Spelling promises the jeweler she'll return. It's probably a lie, but a white one. To his trade show space, it's uncertain if she'll return. To Couture, it's a sure thing.