We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kowa Mattern a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kowa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share a customer success story with us?

One of my favorite parts about owning a jewelry brand is being able to customize or repair pieces for customers/friends. One area I specialize in is restringing pearls. Pearls should all ideally be knotted by hand on silk thread, but like most things, silk can eventually break. The knots in the necklace help the pearls from falling off and all over the place, but the entire piece does need to be deconstructed then restrung in order to be fixed. One of my sister’s best friends inherited a really special pearl necklace from her grandmother, but it had broken a few years back, so it was just sitting in a box. She was afraid to send it to a jeweler she did not know since the pearls were extremely rare. Each of the 107 pearls was found naturally in a wild oyster, which is super uncommon and makes the pearls very valuable. Most pearls today are farmed, which still gives them the same luminous beauty as wild pearls, but they are cultivated, so they are not considered rare.
She reached out to me to see if I was able to restring the necklace for her, and of course I was happy to do it and have the opportunity to work with such a rare piece! Once the necklace was finished and back in her hands, she was so happy and thankful to have this special part of her grandmother’s legacy back and in wearable condition. I feel the most fulfilled when I can help make a special piece of jewerly wearable and loved again.

Kowa , 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?

My name is Kowa Mattern, and I began my jewelry brand, Herself Collections at the end of 2019. At first, I started out by buying pieces from women artisans, but when the world shut down due to the Covid pandemic, and I was spending alone time at home, I began to play around with designing and making my own pieces. My love for creating jewelry grew so that I could fill most of my website with the pieces that I designed and made myself.
My favorite stone to work with is the Rainbow Sapphire. Most people believe, as I once did, that all Sapphires are blue, but in fact, this precious stone comes in all the colors of the rainbow, including clear or white! Technically, red Sapphires are called Rubies, but all other colors get designated as Sapphires. One of my most popular pieces is the Rainbow Sapphire necklace, which is hand strung in an hombre rainbow pattern for an unexpected pop of color.
I love owning a small business and having a direct hand in the production because it allows me to make customizations as needed for the customer. One of my most common customizations is with bracelet sizing. Most women’s bracelets are made in 7 inches, as that is the average size, but many women need larger or smaller sizes. I love being able to make the perfect size for the wearer, so that they can enjoy their bracelet to the fullest potential.
I am most proud of the fact that I have a great community of supporters and cheerleaders that keep me going. Even though I am currently the sole owner of Herself Collections, owning a business is really a community effort. I feel so lucky that I have met incredible people along the way, who have helped me grow.
When I am designing, I get inspiration from the amazing women in my life. Whether they are busy being a mom, heading to work, going to the gym, traveling the world or grabbing a cocktail, I feel so honored that my pieces are often with them along the way. That is why I put a strong focus on, not only on aesthetics, but good quality jewelry that is made for everyday wear.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

With social media becoming over-saturated with ads, and big brands dominating the space with huge budgets, my online store was really struggling to attract the attention of new customers. People simply weren’t going to stumble across my website, because it I didn’t have a budget to advertise online. I knew I had something special, because my circle of friends and acquaintances were all purchasing and supporting me by telling their friends about the brand, but word of mouth was not enough to sustain regular orders. I researched the best ways to get in front of the customer, and began to show at markets geared towards makers and designers. I also began to host private permanent jewelry parties, and would have my core collection on display. Getting my jewelry in front of the customer in-person was a total game changer. It is really hard to show the sparkle and shine of jewelry though photographs, but in person, customers are able to try pieces on and really see and feel the quality first-hand.
It took a couple tries to find the best market for me, so for anyone who has given up on markets because one did not do well, I highly recommend trying another one that might attract a different type of customer. My most successful markets by far have been with Markets for Makers. They are a great organization that hosts markets for small businesses across the country. They have a really strong following of shoppers, and I have never seen a slow market day with them. I typically show at the Houston and Austin markets, and I will be at the Brooklyn, NY market this July 26-27.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I operate my own website, but I also sell some pieces on Etsy, Wolf & Badger and 1-800-Flowers. I don’t sell on Amazon, because I don’t align with their business ethos, and I don’t necessarily want to be a big brand that focuses more on sales than quality or change my ability to make customizations and offer direct customer service.
Like most things, there are pros and cons to working with online marketplaces. The biggest con is the commission or fees that go along with the various platforms. In my experience, Etsy is the least expensive, but they are also so saturated with so many other brands, and they have really seemed to loosen their requirements for who is allowed to sell. It is no longer a haven for small makers. I know many brands see a lot of success there, but I think for newer brands, it is really hard to gain visibility.
Another con is that it can get confusing to track inventory correctly across multiple platforms. For example, if I sell an item on my own website, I have to remember to reduce the units on the other platforms as well.
One benefit of an online marketplace is that you don’t necessarily need your own website, but with companies like Shopify, owning and building your own website has become easier than ever.
Another benefit of online marketplaces is that they pool together the fees from all the brands and are then able to create bigger advertising campaign that attract people to your products that may not have found them otherwise.
One more benefit is that some marketplaces, like Wolf & Badger, take care of many of the logistics of international shipping. So I am able to sell to international customers through them, and they take care of collecting the appropriate taxes, duties, customs paperwork, creating the shipping label, etc.
On my own website, I only ship to US based customers because it does not make sense to deal with the logistics of international shipping at this point in my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.herselfcollections.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/herselfcollections/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/herselfcollections/

Image Credits

Nikki Hirst