We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Payton James. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Payton below.

Hi Payton, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?

I would consider my parents as my heroes. I was born a quadruplet with two older brothers. I truly believe my parents were picked specifically to raise all of us. My father started his own business when my mom got into a car wreck. My dad fixed my mom’s car himself and used the $1500 insurance money to start his own collision repair company, A.I. Collision Repair. The name was changed to Autobody America and they ended up being one of the top collision repair companies in the mid south with over 20 locations. My whole family was a part of it while growing up by either washing cars, cleaning the offices with my mom, or even managing a few of the locations. We all felt a part of something my dad created and was really good at. My parents always inspired us to go after something we were passionate for and taught us entrepreneurial ways whether they knew it or not. Examples are waking up earlier, cold calling companies, following up often, etc. Sometimes, we’d go on business trips with my parents and my dad would have inspiring audio books on for us to listen to and other times he would leave out newspaper articles for us to read that he’d hope would leave a mark on us.

My mom gets the calls from me when I am waiting on emails back from buyers. She encourages me and is the most kind human. I would say she is where I get my creative side from. I could not be more grateful for having a family that supports my passion and roots me on. Everyone deserves that. My whole family has helped me pack orders for Anthropologie, HomeGoods, and web orders. My parents are the ones that helped me get started and encouraged me to start my business after seeing my handbag designs and experience with Technical Design.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I went to school for fashion design in Franklin, TN at O’More College Design. It is a small school that is very hands on. Everyone knew each other and we all were able to critique one another that helped us grow and challenge us to dive deeper. I developed a passion for accessories while I was working on my Junior collection working on accessories to help accessorize my designs. After graduation, I went on to work at a lifestyle company based in Nashville, TN. A year later, I started my own company, Payton James, selling artisan made handbags with napa leather imported from Italy.

During the pandemic I started getting excited about building my house and doing constant research on interior design. Although I did not move on with building my home I ended up sampling table runners and placemats with my raffia vendor I developed a relationship with a couple years prior making handbags. I had never seen anything like it before in stores besides jute placemats. I sent the product to different buyers and quickly gained a response from Anthropologie. I remember getting the email back while cooking dinner and was so excited! This was really exciting! We are really excited to launch some new product with them next year in stores. Also, this year we launched a some product with HomeGoods which was really awesome since Tj Maxx was my very first job while in college. I always love shopping there too for unique things for my home.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have had to source multiple vendors to make the same product before due to one vendor not being able to deliver on time. It is important to not give up! I learned a lot during the process. I have learned to give strict deadlines to vendors with ship dates in order to meet your customer’s deadlines. It is also always important to have other vendors lined up in case something happens that is unexpected. You never want to overpromise and under deliver.

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

Yes! I learned some about product development through school and also working in the industry. I learned most of what I know with sourcing just by researching online. I am always looking for inspiration and trying to source vendors who may be able to work on making the ideas in my head. I never was an excellent Illustrator or even sewer in school. You do not have to be in the product development world as long as you have some knowledge of it. It is good to know how to make spec sheets and save lots of inspiration pictures to sent to your vendors. Usually when I am searching for new vendors/manufacturers I send them a survey and ask for photos of their factories to learn about how artisans are treated and also get to know the manufacturers I want to build a relationship with. I have worked with manufacturers in India, Madagascar, Italy, and most recently China for the dog toys I am sampling.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.paytonjamesusa.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/shoppaytonjames
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paytonjamesusa
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/payton-james-a29590105/

Image Credits
All these were taken by me and include my family and I packing our largest orders and me at tradeshows in NY. I have other photos if needed! You can also use any high res photos you would like from my website. Thanks!