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Gemmed by Kim&MakiBy Yasu Maskay
My love affair with jewelry started at an early age when my father, an avid
admirer of pearls gave me a strand of Mikimoto pearls. He continued to
present me with pearl ornaments throughout my lifetime and since then, my
jewelry collection have included flea market gems in the shores of Bali,
Indonesia to one-of-a-kind creation from a woman who resides in the mountain
of Annapurna, Nepal.
Recently my jewelry infatuation has expanded to the creations of independent designers. Most of these artists do not have a retail store and rely on selling their pieces online. As a newbie to online jewelry, I reached out to my girlfriends and asked them for advice. Where do they go to purchase jewelry online? Their overall recommendation was Kim&Maki. The range of designs profiled on their site is impressive. I contacted the two entrepreneurs Kim Reed & Maki Berger about their passion and learned a thing or two on trusting my instincts when picking jewelry. 
How did you two meet? We met working together at Verdura, a high-end jeweler in NYC, in 1997. We stayed friends and eventually worked together again at an investment bank for 5 years until we started our business. What ignited your fascination with jewelry? (Maki) My first job out of college was working for Chanel, right as they were preparing to launch the fine jewelry line. One of my responsibilities was to conduct trainings on the history of Coco Chanel's jewelry and the modern interpretations of her designs in the new collection. I had no previous background in jewelry but was always an art lover and this exposure cemented my interest in jewelry and design. (Kim) I have always been interested in jewelry every since I was a child. Right out of college I interned at Christie's Auction House in the jewelry department. It was there that I was introduced to Verdura along many other amazing designers. That job lead me to Verdura where I worked in the design and manufacturing department and was able to recreate many beautiful pieces of jewelry using his original drawings. How many lines do you carry/what are your criteria in including a collection? 
Right now we offer selections from 7 different jewelry designers from
London, Paris, New York and Tokyo. From the start our strategy was to trust
our own style instincts and choose whatever attracted us personally, rather
than following trends or popular designers. We buy what we like - jewelry
we'd love to wear ourselves: be it fashion-forward, classic or playful.
It's important that each piece of jewelry we carry be wearable on its own,
as well as layered with other jewelry and accessories.
Do you create your own jewelry as well? We don't create our own jewelry - yet. We'd love to explore that in the future. What is the mission behind your business? Our mission has always been to find jewelry that is different, interesting and beautiful. There are a lot of designers out there who have made a name for themselves and are carried by all the fashion boutiques. But the buyers for these stores all follow the trends and as a result, we find shopping for jewelry to be boring. Every store has almost the same thing. We have a lot of respect for smaller, independent designers who show creativity and versatility - and what's fun about the buying process is the research: discovering new or unknown talent. And offering jewelry at affordable prices, which is why we don't carry any fine jewelry. www.kimandmaki.com. 
What are some challenges you've faced running your business? We started off doing trunk shows in conference rooms, private parties and selling events, which was a lot of hard work - tagging and packing up all our jewelry, laying it out for display, selling and breaking down. It was also a lot of fun because we had face time with our customers. So launching our website not only helped open up a bigger market for us, it has eased the physical burden of selling. Now, we only do private selling during the major jewelry holidays: Valentine's Day and Christmas/Chanukah. In addition to operating our website, we are sales agents for one of the designers we carry: Marjorie Victor - so we also work the trade show circuit and deal with wholesale clients. It's a juggling act but it's also great to be involved in both aspects of our business. Marketing our website continues to be challenging. When you're online, it's all about increasing exposure and building your mailing list, so advertising is a must. We also spend a lot of time keeping up with shopping blogs, which are great for driving traffic. What are 3 advices you'd share with a newbie on launching an e-commerce jewelry company? 
First and foremost - in coming up with the design for your website - find
someone who communicates well and often! Designers are notoriously slow as
they most likely are working on more than one project at a time, so they
don't always have your best interests at heart. We had to delay the launch
of our site by 6 months after our designer couldn't deliver what he promised
- with notice just weeks before our initial launch date!
Also, you should carefully select someone who has experience with e-commerce websites and understands the impact of design on sales. The design/layout of the site can affect how user-friendly it is for the customer to browse and shop - so you don't want to sacrifice function for style. In the end, we believe that simple is best. Finally, a great photographer is key. The product shot(s) are all your customers have to go on - and most jewelry is really best tried on in person - so you need to give as accurate and as beautiful a photo as possible to represent each piece of jewelry. Ok this is a biased question: what is your favorite jewelry brand? 
Our favorite jewelry brand is of course Marjorie Victor - who we also
represent. She truly is the real deal - an artist and a craftsman - with an
incredible work ethic. Not only is her line gorgeous, her jewelry is all
handmade, using locally-sourced, recycled silver and gold. We love that she
is mindful of our environment.
In addition to jewelry and handbags, what can we expect in your future collections? Our website is focused on jewelry and we'll probably keep it that way for now. www.kimandmaki.com. |
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