We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nona and Jaye Moffett a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Nona and Jaye, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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.
Jay and Nona are married and the proprietors of Looking Glass Gems. They met while living in New Orleans and relocated to Baltimore MD. Jaye is an actor and variety performer and Nona is a dancer and actor.
Nona makes most of her own costuming for the stage and was having a difficult time sourcing an affordable rhinestone. Her budget couldn’t afford Swarovski, but she needed something that would sparkle on stage just as much!
Nona’s father was a jeweler and passed along the knowledge that helped her find an incredible rhinestone manufacturer in 2015. Originally, she was just sourcing for herself and then for her friends, until more and more colleagues expressed the same need. Before we knew it; we were providing rhinestones to performers, costumers and creatives across the country. The business really organically snowballed into what it is today! As Nona grew Looking Glass Gems over the years, it became apparent that we had the opportunity to make this our family business. Jaye came onboard full time in 2019.
In February of 2020, we decided to put all of our focus toward the business and move across the country to the sparkle capital of the universe: Las Vegas, Nevada!
With the majority of our client base being somehow related to the live performance industry, we nearly didn’t survive the pandemic. No one was able to perform; therefore, the need for rhinestones stopped.
Since we had so many rhinestones and no one was buying them, we began utilizing our own products in a much bigger way! We began crystallizing everything in sight!! It became a major creative and therapeutic outlet for us both. We even auctioned some of our creations to raise funds for important causes throughout 2020 and 2021.
This gave us the idea to not only sell our rhinestones, but to open up our business to commissions and custom work. We can do everything from crystallizing home goods, cars, murals, to giving a costume that little bit of sparkle, to making photo realistic art and anything else our clients can dream up! It’s really given both of us a lot of excitement and creative fulfillment to have this be a facet of our business!
Nona and Jaye, 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?
Our stunning products are indistinguishable in side by side comparisons to both Preciosa and Swarovski; the world’s foremost rhinestone brands. They are also roughly 25% the cost of Preciosa and about half the cost of Swarovski! We wanted to keep our product affordable and accessible.
Being a small, family operated business allows us to give excellent customer service. We take great pride in not only our high-quality products, but being there for our clients and customers. Our industry runs into a lot of “sparkle emergencies”; last minute costume repairs, tight timelines, emergency upgrades etc. Being performers/artists and running into these issues ourselves; we’ve worked that understanding into our business model. We make rush processing and shipping accessible, we crystallize late into the night, so that we can stay true to our mission of making the world a more sparkly place!
We are passionate about art and artists. We are also activists who are seeking ways to bring equity to every space we occupy! In that spirit, we have created our Black Joy Sparkles initiative. Art and creative outlets are powerhouses during times of change and resistance, reminding us of our constant ability to find joy and grow resilience in this world. Black artists are essential and we are working with generous donors to get supplies in their hands to create with! We’re excited to expand this program in the years to come to include more and more creative communities that need our products for their artistic outlets!
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Initially, Nona had purchased just a little bit of extra rhinestones for a few of her friends and colleagues. At this time, we were both busking at Baltimore’s inner harbor, doing corporate gigs in DC, doing setup and crew for the special events industry, local dance gigs and acting. As the excitement around the rhinestones grew and grew, Jaye invested the capital so Nona could purchase larger quantities for more colleagues. From that point on, our funding was a credit card and a dream!!! Within a year, we built our own website and used our grassroots network in the performance industry for our marketing. It was really mostly word of mouth at the beginning! Jaye’s 25 years and Nona’s decade in the entertainment industry were an essential piece of our growth.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
Nona has a lot of heritage in New Orleans. In the early days of our business, she was very interested in letting all of the Mardi Gras Krewes know about Looking Glass Gems. The Krewes put on the world famous parades and have opulent, extravagant balls every year.
These institutions are very insulated and hard to get access to. Nona cold called the president of every single Krewe until she got through. She had a rousing conversation with the president of one of the oldest Krewes. Because of the liking he had taken to her; he gave her the contact information of the most prominent costume designer in the city; along with a recommendation!
The costume designer was initially set on staying with Swarovski; until she saw our products in person! She was so thrilled with our quality and pricing that she gave us a chance. She remains one of our most loyal clients to this day! It means so much to both of us, while not based in New Orleans any longer; to still get to play some small roll in the magic of the city!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lookingglassgems.com
- Instagram: @lookingglassgems
- Facebook: @lookingglassgems
- Other: TikTok: @looking_glass_gems
Image Credits
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