Headlines

Once a One-Woman Shop, Now Her Bangles Are Made in 350 Homes Across Her City

Published

7 years ago

July 6, 2016

INSTORE Staff

Presence in Nordstrom helped make Bourbon & Boweties a national brand.

Carley Ochs has taken her Brandon, FL-based Bourbon & Boweties jewelry label a long way in just four years, launching as a one-woman shop in 2012 to now employing 350 independent contractors in the Tampa Bay region who make her bangles in their own homes, as Bizwomen explains. The online publication spotlighted the 30-year-old founder for her commitment to American-made manufacturing, writing that workers are paid for each piece, and two days a week they can drop off the finished bracelets and pick up more materials from a warehouse. The waiting list of people who want to make the bangles consists of more than 600 people.

Bourbon & Boweties sells between 50,000 and 100,000 bracelets each month and has a retail presence in all 50 states, boosted by its sales in Nordstrom, the Tampa Bay Business Journal writes.

Read more at Bizwomen

It Was Time to Make a Decision. It Was Time to Call Wilkerson.

Except for a few years when he worked as an accountant, Jim Schwartz has always been a jeweler. He grew up in the business and after “counting beans” for a few years, he and his wife, Robin, opened Robin James Jewelers in Cincinnati, Ohio. “We were coming to a stage in our life where we knew we have to make a decision,” says Jim Schwartz. He and Robin wanted to do it right, so they called Wilkerson. The best surprise (besides surpassing sales goals)? “The workers and associations really care about helping us move out own inventory out of the store first. It was very important to us.”