Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gabrielle Lawrence, Rashana Calloway N/A. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Gabrielle Lawrence, Rashana Calloway thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Brielle and I created Brielle Ray because we love jewelry and wanted to promote mental wellness. We love to see the way our pieces make people feel and look. For many people, jewelry is a part of their wardrobe and our goal is to provide busy women simple or luxurious pieces that make them feel put together with minimal effort.

Prior to starting our brand, we had never heard of a jewelry brand that brought together mental wellness and jewelry. It is our mission to promote self love, self acceptance, and confidence in all of our customers.

Gabrielle Lawrence, Rashana Calloway, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We started as friends who were bloggers. Gabrielle blogged about fashion and Rashana blogged about mental health and self-awareness. It is through our friendship that we realized we had a common love for jewelry. We are both busy wives and mothers who intentionally make time for our own personal self-care. Both Brielle and I understand how little availability we have for ourselves, but we always try to prioritize looking put together even when we don’t feel our best or have the time. This is our goal for everyone who purchases from Brielle Ray.

We always include a motivational message or words of encouragement when communicating with our audience. It is imperative that our customers know that our brand is about more than jewelry. Brielle Ray is about promoting self-acceptance and knowledge that we are in control of our lives, our energy and how we feel about ourselves internally.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We currently use vendors for our product line until we are able to start designing our own pieces. Finding the right vendors took a lot of trail and error. We researched different vendors, learned about materials, ordered samples, asked our audience their opinion of different pieces and went from there. The lessons we have learned about working with vendors is doing a background check on them as far as how long they’ve been in business, their reputation or reviews, and how they communicate. Once we found a few that we liked, we made sure to build a relationship with them and stay in consistent contact. This has paid off as we’ve received complimentary pieces or expedited shipping at no cost to us.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

We met each other at an event Gabrielle was hosting for a previous business she had back in 2017. The event was at a restaurant where she was hosting a blogger mix and mingle. I (Rashana) knew her from social media, but we had not met in person as of that day. We introduced ourselves, exchanged numbers and the rest was history.

One day at lunch in the summer of 2019, I asked her if she had ever thought about starting her own jewelry or accessories line. She said yes, but she wasn’t sure about it. I shared my desire to create one and asked if she would be the co-founder. We began thinking about names, colors, types of jewelry and brand messaging. By 2021, we had saved up our own money, went through the business formation process, and began the website creation process. We also began ordering samples and trying out different vendors. Brielle Ray launched in November of 2021 and we have been working on our brand ever since.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brielleray.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briellerayofficial/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebrielleray

Image Credits
Photographer: Dele Nguyen