One day I made it my mission to find out who made Kelly Ripa's gold shark tooth necklace. Kelly wears a pretty, dainty shark tooth necklace most mornings on her show, and from the first time I saw the it, I instantly fell in love. I am not going to lie, it took a long time to successfully link Kelly Ripa to Vale jewelry. But boy, am I glad that my search lead me to Ava and Eva Bai's beautiful jewelry line. Their jewelry arsenal extends way further than shark teeth and their professional attitudes and fun take on jewelry is refreshing and inspiring.
For more inspiration from the twin sisters, their gorgeous jewelry line, business philosophy, and celebrity clients, just keep reading!
We love being able to do what we love and never take for granted how lucky we truly are. There are certainly challenges to running one's own business, the toughest being time management.
Our days are usually unpredictable, while there is a typical arc for the mornings, afternoons, and evenings, it's this unpredictability that makes our work so fun and enjoyable. We often find ourselves purchasing raw materials in the morning; diamonds, gold, castings, findings, preparing for the day's work at the studio. Meeting private clients throughout the day is a big part of our work. We spend time at museums and reading to draw inspiration for new pieces. Sometimes we can spend hours hunched over drawing and designing our next collections. We also participate in many shopping events and then we're in the midst of selling and meeting our past, current and future clients.
Our obsession with fashion and accessories started at a young age. During our youth, we spent many summers together at our aunt's house in South Jersey, where days were pretty idyllic, where most afternoons were passed at the beach, time marked mainly by meals. To shake things up, we found
ourselves killing hours upon hours in the aisles of craft stores, discovering all the hidden joys of craft projects from building hummingbird houses to needlework to jewelry making. Our foray into jewelry
didn't pick up again until college where we ended up making pieces in our off-time, between exams and classes, for friends. We started getting random requests from friends of friends and had an inkling that perhaps we were on to something.
Post college, we opened up a store with some other designers just starting off in the lower east side, when it was just rows of bodegas, bars and clubs. The traffic never caught up with the neighborhood's growing trendiness until recently, but we decided to close after one year and start pitching to other stores. Soon our line was carried at over 90 shops and boutiques around the world.
We both love fashion that is wearable but still visually interesting and current. We are both passionate about continually and consistently designing a cohesive line that speaks to our idea of making jewelry that transcends fads and trends. We are lucky to have a really loyal clientele partly because of that.
We continue to travel often and extensively and consider it really important to remain open-minded during those travels. Our collections are constantly inspired from concepts, look and feel, and ideas from the many cultures and places we've been lucky to see and be a part of.
And of course, being in NY, you have this amazing access to so many artists. Every year, we do a collaboration with a local artist and it's such an amazing opportunity to see their work from a different light but also to then create this "love child" of sculpture, painting and jewelry!
We believe that accessorizing should be fun and easy. These pieces are like little art but also represent something that gives a woman a chance to be playful and create a personality, allowing her to finish her "look".
We design for the Vale girl in mind. She is a woman who enjoys classic as well as edgier styles but ultimately has fun with fashion. She knows her style and isn't tied down by any one trend, but instead is able to pull together looks and styles from everywhere to create a look that is uniquely her own. One days she'll be wearing leather tie-up boots with a skirt and another she's with her cocktail dress and heels.
We love working with stars and stylists but we find equally fun to work with our "every girl" client. You realize after a while that they are just women like the rest of us who enjoy looking good and taking care of themselves. And we definitely still find it flattering to see that given their access to so much fashion and freebies, that they still choose to buy from us directly. Interaction and staying in touch with our clientele is key for us. Despite having a sales staff, we continue to participate in our sample sale, fundraising and private client events because we love meeting the women and men that purchase our jewelry and it's always a joy to see the pieces being worn and enjoyed! It's something we find constantly exciting.
As twins, we have this great connection but are so incredibly different in many ways. There is a dynamic there that has really made it a perfect union. However, regardless of that fact, working with any family member adds additional challenges. You're much more comfortable with one another but that comfort level can lead to taking one another for granted. Key to a working "family" business is respect, space and role management. Respect one another, give one another space and assign roles within the business.
Like any business, it's only as strong as those running it. Each partner has a strength and they should focus on managing those aspects of the business where they are good at handling.
A big part of being businesswomen who are also on the creative side is knowing when to be strong and stand by your decisions as well as ensure our business has "heart" and still exist for the original reason for which we started it. Ultimately, patience and knowing which battles to pick is probably the advice we'll give. Knowing that some things are worth fighting for and others are not.
Thanks Ava + Eva, you're a real inspiration!
