I took a break from making jewelry last year. There wasn't an exact day when the break began, or a specific reason for it - over the course of a year, I had slowly gotten back into theater work, and I started traveling more often. Before I knew it, six months had passed with no new Imprint By Eileen pieces. Running my company had started to feel stagnant and frustrating too - back in 2012, I had run a small boutique out of 12 Lions Studio in NoHo. Running that boutique was a real crash course in business - I was constantly dealing with new challenges that I had never imagined. Every week, I worked 60+ hours between the time I spent not only running and managing the boutique, but also creating every piece of jewelry. I really was a one woman show - part salesman, part manager, and part artist, which became a difficult balance to maintain. |
By the end of my time at 12 Lions, I had sold almost $50,000 worth of jewelry, which was (and still is!) quite an accomplishment. The part that was not so great was the fact that I had paid nearly $25,000 on the rent and more than $10,000 in supplies. In the end, it was not a very profitable endeavor. I realized afterwards that my company just hadn't been ready for that level of selling - I didn't have enough of an established following, and I didn't have enough money in savings to allow me to wait while I built that clientele. I found that most people off the street who don't know your brand just want to buy things for as cheap as they can. If a bracelet costs $60, they'll try to talk you down to $25. Day after day and week after week, it becomes demoralizing. |
When your living depends so much on every single day of sales, the pressure is on to produce what people want to buy. If they want $20 earrings, you make $20 earrings. And so on. And so I started to make more and more of the easy pieces that sold well, to try to make my living. The result, of course, was that over time, I wasn't making pieces of jewelry that excited me anymore. I started to feel like a factory worker making minimum wage, churning out the same stale pieces week after week. I just depended too much on the daily sales - I couldn't afford to have a bad day, let alone a bad week or month. The stress felt overwhelming. |
Without a doubt, the best part of my 12 Lions experience was the small but loyal group of customers that I developed over the year. These were people who loved my designs and my aesthetic, and were delighted to spend money on the new pieces that I made. Each sale like that felt thrilling - it made me feel validated as an artist and as a business owner, while the customer was pleased to walk away with a brand new and special jewelry piece. I will never forget any of the customers who have supported me over the years - they absolutely are the foundation of my business. |
And I promise that I'll still have a nice selection of pieces in the $25 range - but each piece will be special, and I won't be mass producing them. Everything I'm making now is very small batch - one of only a few produced, or completely one of a kind. Just after Labor Day, the new collection will hit my website. I can't wait to be back.....the new Imprint By Eileen is on its way.