Today we’d like to introduce you to Janie Kruse Garnett
Hi Janie Kruse, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
In 2013, I felt jewelry was lacking substance and staying power, so I started designing pieces that I thought might survive at least one decade, if not six. I daydreamed of grandchildren fighting over various JKG rings and cheese knives at will readings in 2082. Then I couldn’t quite find an eco friendly candle that didn’t *look* eco-friendly – don’t get me wrong, I want to be as environmentally conscious as possible but I staunchly oppose the granola aesthetic. Then I sort of pootled towards silk accessories, having absconded with my mother’s considerable scarf collection in 1995ish for the purpose of creating what we would now call “glamping” tents for my Breyer horses. My first collection had maps of Rome, Paris, and London, with elegant bugs over all my favorite stores and bars, inspired obviously by the paratrooper silk maps of WWII and also my famously zero sense of direction which is noticeable when trying to find the aforementioned stores and bars, so I thought it would be *the* most useful accessory, and it was! For myself. Shockingly, the general public found it less useful, so I have now evolved to cheeky, sneaky designs that are somewhat less niche. Then in the beginning of the pandemic, I started with the bed linens in a reactionary move against the dour, cold, short-lasting dark grey bamboo heinousness that pervaded bedrooms at the time. I wasn’t asking for the world, I just wanted happy but not suffocating, crisp percale sheets slightly under my mother’s price point that would last for a few years at least. As usually prompts my foray into things, I couldn’t find the aforementioned bed linens, so I made them. And so here we are: JKG is a very limited selection of various items that I created for first for myself, and now for others.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Oof, reaching minimums. Factories, understandably, will often have a threshold you need to cross in order for them to even be interested in your order. So, 5,000 units, 10,000. As a small brand with no outside backing, you want to start with, say, five pieces, which is laughably short of minimum order quantities. Just for packaging, even! If you want a very small run of something made, the per unit cost is astronomically high, and that obviously gets passed on to the customer. Then the question of: why you are so expensive compared to say, Gucci. Well – Gucci has a factory where they can produce many thousands of this item at one time, and they have warehouses to store them, and they can buy in bulk. When you’re buying from JKG, you are one of like six people in the world who will have that specific piece. So, JKG is perhaps for a savvier client who understands the benefits of having something that you’re not going to see on anyone else on Madison Avenue. You have to want to be wearing a sort of shibboleth. This is not the most amazing business model – they say you need to focus on volume which is just something I am not able to do. You can’t write little thank you cards to every client at volume!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I make luxury goods and fine jewelry. I like very pretty things made from top notch ingredients that will last a while. You know how if you make boeuf bourguignon with grass fed beef and great wine and organic vegetables, the end result can’t be anything but delicious? I feel this way about most things. So, JKG has great ingredients and whatever you cook in your life will be wonderful. A JKG ring will bring you talismanic confidence and ease when you run into an ex whilst in your worst athleisure/gardening attire. A JKG scarf will make you feel put together and charming when you are invited very last minute to an elegant dinner just outside of Rome and your suitcase has only white jeans and men’s shirts. JKG bed linens can turn even a hovel into a chic, English countryside, cozy romantique bedroom straight from a favorite novel, and even better they transform a gorgeously, studiously, fully decorator-decorated house into *your* home that is *your* happy nesting place when you wake up with pretty, unfussy flower prints at eyeball level at 8 in the morning. I’m known for making sturdy things that fortify you and your life in flattering and beautiful ways.
What were you like growing up?
Total nerdlington. My parents, thank goodness, raised us without television, away from the city, with mountains of books, and horses and chickens in the backyard and 5am chores non-negotiably on the table, even in New England winters. They always had the most interesting friends come over for dinner, a brown furniture expert here, a classical building encyclopedia of a human there. I just read everything I possibly could and was that kid who was always asking questions, and very rarely invited to birthday parties. I was very good at math and always tested really well, academically, so was often told I should be a lawyer. An aptitude test strongly recommended long term military strategy. I personally wanted to be a spy. I love figuring things out, so designer is really not so off piste as you might think. There is a lot of research and development in design; psychology, even corporate espionage if you’re generous! in trying to find mysterious suppliers. I don’t think I have changed very much, I am just a tad more confident and thankfully a load less anxious than I was as a youth. I’m still a tinkerer.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.janiekrusegarnett.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janiekrusegarnett/?hl=en
Image Credits
Janie Kruse Garnett