Laura Vann: Growing a Demi-Fine Jewellery Brand Without Paid Advertising

GoldDust

Laura Vann shares the story of building her namesake jewellery brand from its origins in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter to becoming a staple in

Key takeaways

• Withdrawing all paid advertising (Meta/Google) led to an 826% increase in sales and a 638% increase in conversion rates.
• Laura utilizes complex stone settings, such as the olive ring with white topaz and baguette stones, specifically because they are difficult for mass-market competitors to replicate.
• The 'Bling Ring' series successfully promoted bespoke services by collaborating with influential figures like Charlotte Olympia and Raven Smith.
• Key retail partnerships include Fortnum & Mason, Liberty, Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges.
• Laura identifies as a 'hybrid' entrepreneur, attempting to balance the creative passion of an artist with the commercial necessity of a business person.

Main topics

• Brand origin and family business heritage
• Design philosophy and Art Deco inspiration
• Organic marketing vs. paid advertising

Notable quotes

They want to sell out without selling out.

Conclusion

This episode serves as a masterclass in finding growth through authent

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:02) Laura Vann is the designer and founder behind her namesake brand, a demi-fine jewelry line of vintage-inspired casual jewels presented in a modern context. Right from the start, Laura had a crystal clear vision of what she wanted her business to be and how she wanted it to look, essentially building a brand universe. This awareness of the importance of the context the jewelry is presented in, as well as a constant focus on what the customer wants, has led to the exponential growth of the business. and the brand is now stocked in London's Fortnum & Mason, Harvey Nichols, Liberty, and Selfridges. In this episode, we talk about how she has evolved the business into selling both demi-fine and fine jewelry and diamonds, the power of personal collaborations and in-person events over social ad spend, and why you need to create designs that are hard to copy. Some of the best advice she's ever been given. Laura Vann, welcome to the Gold Dust Podcast. Hello, Laura Vann. Hello. Speaker 2 (0:57) Welcome Speaker 1 (0:57) to the Gold Dust Podcast. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. Thank you for asking me. It's so great. And for those who know me, Laura Vann is my go-to demi-fine jewelry brand of choice. And with Christmas coming up, I am literally recommending it to loads of people and wearing and wearing. I did spot this. I was like, are these hats? Yeah, they're so cute. I Speaker 2 (1:23) wear Speaker 1 (1:23) them all the time. I wear them all the time. I'm a big fan. So I'd really like to start with your origin story. I love an origin story. And I think that yours is really interesting as well. So you founded your business back in 2014. Is that right? Yeah, I think actually earlier. I think 2013. Yeah. Really? Wow. Speaker 1 (1:47) 12 years ago and you founded it alongside your father who was already running his own separate, very successful jewellery business and had done so for many years. So how did you decide to start working alongside him? Speaker 2 (2:07) My dad's business, the business that I joined is very different to... the business that we have today. Um, and it's certainly not like, you know, you know, when you like hear about design Speaker 1 (2:22) and you're like, who are their parents? Or like, you know, what Speaker 2 (2:25) heiress is she? Um, and my dad's business, um, some years successful, some years not successful. Um, he had a wholesale jewelry business. And so it was all white label products, nothing branded. So, you know, he might get a big account with like Claire's Accessories or something like that. You know, I am the heiress to the belly bars at Claire's Accessories. Speaker 1 (2:49) The belly bars. Speaker 2 (2:52) But, you know, he would get that account and it would last for a year and then they'd move distribution to the US and then it would be back down to having to cut overheads for him or like, you know, take salary cuts for himself. So it was quite a precarious business actually that I joined. And I actually really didn't have any intention of actually joining. I'd gone to uni in London. I'd wanted to get into fashion journalism. I started working at COS just on the shop floor in Regent Street. And I loved working for COS. I really actually wanted to Speaker 1 (3:27) carry on working and kind of move up to the head office there. But Speaker 2 (3:31) after graduating uni, I couldn't afford to live in London anymore. And obviously trying to get into fashion journalism ain't the best paid grad job going. So it's like I had to move back home because I didn't have the means to live in London. And so I was just helping out my dad's jewelry business day to day. And then I transferred from Regent Street Cords to Birmingham and did evening shifts there. Somehow I had the energy to do both jobs simultaneously. And I loved the ethos of CODs and I loved how they were making timeless products that were well-made and affordable. It was like this kind of middle, middle luxury. And, you know, when I was working for my dad, I realized that we had like an amazing platform because as precarious as his kind of business was. What he did have was a brilliant foundation of, you know, great suppliers, you know, the understanding of the fundamentals of how to run a jewelry business. And so I, at that point, realized that we had a good foundation to start a brand that applied that cause ethos to jewelry. Yeah, Speaker 1 (4:42) but as you say, you're right. It's not like it was a kind of... inherited leg up into the industry from a kind of financial point of view or even connections really. I'm sure his expertise was helpful. Yeah, zero connections, sadly, unless it's like some guy in the jewellery quarter called John that could Speaker 2 (5:07) fix a pair of broken earrings. I think it's so important to be like really transparent. Like, obviously, I had a brilliant platform in terms of knowing packaging suppliers and, you know, the factory that makes the jewelry for our Demi Fine offering is the same father-son business that my dad worked with 30 years ago. You know, my dad worked with the father and now I work with the son and it's the only manufacturer that's ever made our Demi Fine jewelry. But aside from the kind of manufacturing side of things, There were no connections. And to be honest with you, actually, our brand independently, like the Laura Van brand, it ran completely independently to my dad's business. He just left me kind of to it, you know, funded the initial collection, which was probably a few thousand pounds. But we were profitable from year one because we worked with some sales agents that, again, were introduced to me by my dad. But equally. highs and lows, you know, working with a guy called Barry that's trying to get your Speaker 1 (6:15) product into some Speaker 2 (6:17) random little accessories. It wasn't, oh God, it would be brilliant if it was just random little jewelry Speaker 1 (6:25) stores. I know that was that you wanted a very different direction and you had, it seemed like you had a really clear idea of what you wanted to do sort of right from the off. Like you wanted to present, I suppose in a similar way. because you wanted to present your jewelry within a specific kind of context and give it that context, which is essentially brand building. Speaker 2 (6:49) Yeah, totally. And a world that my dad and, you know, the other people that work alongside my dad, like our financial director, Graham, have zero experience of and up until recently had zero appreciation of. So as much as... it was brilliant to kind of have this kind of infrastructure. I also spent so many years back and forth, push and pulling, trying to kind of like convince them of this new way of doing things. And often actually Graham says like, you know, this is a brand new business. Like this isn't a business that was pre-existing. We've started from scratch because actually we're doing something very different. You know, my dad was wholesaling actually. we've built is a Speaker 1 (7:37) brand. So you went for that. Did you feel that there was a gap in the market for kind of well-priced design led affordable jewelry? I Speaker 2 (7:48) think so. Yeah. I think, you know, when I was thinking about what I loved about COS and what I felt that kind of like filled in the market that was missing, it was this timeless, like seasonless product in clothing. But when I looked at their jewelry, it didn't kind of reflect that timelessness. No, it's very Speaker 1 (8:09) directional, isn't it, their jewelry? Yeah, very bold, Speaker 2 (8:12) very architectural. And for me, timeless jewelry is something that, you know, looks inherited from, you know, generations before you and something that you could pass on to the next generation. It's complicated. It's intricate. And, you know, with our origins, you know, my dad's jewelry business was founded in the jewelry quarter in Birmingham. And today our offices are based in North Birmingham. We're in the jewelry quarter all of the time for our bespoke. I'm still exposed to that really traditional style of jewelry where craftsmanship is so intricate and so complicated, you know. when things were made by hand and stones were cut by hand. And it's that complexity of old jewellery that I feel is so timeless. Would Speaker 1 (9:01) you or could you please explain to those who don't know the Laura Van brand what your jewellery looks like? When I was thinking Speaker 2 (9:09) about kind of like what is timeless jewellery to me, like I said, it's that kind of complexity and intricate design style. I wanted to look at something like I looked back through kind of like jewelry archives at styles of jewelry that reemerged throughout jewelry history and still felt relevant. And for me, it's that kind of art deco design. I remember kind of seeing Mary Kay Olsen and she was like head to toe in the row. Super kind of simple, you know, that pared back Scandi style of clothing, which I obviously really loved. And then she just had this. big fat Cartier target ring on her engagement finger. And, you know, that ring for me was just like this epitome of, you know, design intricacy with like different color stones, sapphires, all hand cut. And then I think it had like a kind of yellow diamond or some kind of like smoky kind of brown diamonds. And I love that juxtaposition. And so, you know, I... I thought to myself, gosh, if that is still so relevant when you pair it and it looks so effortless and chic when you pair it with something quite contemporary in terms of clothing. you know, that's never going to go out of style. And so I've really like adopted this Art Deco style, but also kind of making it modern by applying it to those contemporary trends, especially if they're rooted in history. Like, for example, enamel is something that was really prevalent in the Art Deco period. So when that enamel trend came around a couple of years ago, we really embraced that because it's still timeless. Similarly, you know, cord jewelry, we will kind of apply. a heavily embellished stone set pendant to a cord necklace because actually Cartier did cord and, you know, they had these gorgeous diamond pendants set against something quite casual like a cord necklace. So, you know, a lot of our pieces feature hand-cut, baguette-cut stones. We play with colour. I mean, one of our most iconic rings. Are you wearing it actually? Is the olive ring? I am wearing it, yes. Speaker 1 (11:24) So Speaker 2 (11:25) that's like a perfect example. You know, the central stone is a white topaz, round, brilliant cut, bezel set. And then you've got channel set, green baguette cut stones. You've got a mixture of... yellow gold and rhodium plating in there. You've got claw setting. You've got like a variety of color, a variety of setting. And that's that complexity that I think defines Signature Style. And Speaker 1 (11:55) the way that you present it as well has become so much a part of your brand. So I feel like you're presenting this vintage-inspired, deco-inspired jewelry in a really modern context, which... I really liked about your brand when I first came across it, you know, 12 years ago, whenever it was, because it was just, I hadn't seen that before. It was just a really, it was quite niche, but also just felt really easy. It was accessible. It felt accessible in a way that I think vintage style jewelry can often. you would feel it only applies to some kind of style or a type of person that would wear that style. But I feel like you've really broadened out the scope of wearability because you present it consistently in this really fresh, modern context. I don't really know what it Speaker 2 (12:49) is that defines that. You know, I think I just inside of me have this kind of intrinsic, I like this, I don't like this. It feels very kind of like natural to me, but then also often I do worry that like, is there consistency throughout our collection? Because there's no set strategy to it, if that makes sense of like, you know, what I think encapsulates that modern vintage. But you know, when I speak to lovely people like yourself, and you're like, no, it's so clear. It Speaker 1 (13:16) is really clear. And I think that's your design instinct coming out. So, you know, what you love and what you're inspired by from a design perspective. paired with your own kind of sense of taste and your sensibilities and your own aesthetic, which is obviously, you know, the modern dressing in a modern way. You know, you're not dressing like an old granny. You're not all the time today. But I think that it's that juxtaposition and that kind of contrast, which I really like. It also ties in really nicely to this quote that I found when I was doing my research for today. I'm actually going to read aloud to you because I think it's really interesting. So you said, as I see it, there are three kinds of people in the jewellery industry. There are those who reject the mainstream, choosing voluntary poverty in the name of perfecting their craft, the starving artists. Then you have those aiming for financial supremacy because at heart, they are business people, the magnates. And then you have the hybrid. And the hybrid, you say, has a difficult task. They want to sell out without selling out. They walk a tightrope between fashion and finance that could tip any second. And before they know it, creating a collection mutates into building a brand. I am, by chance, a hybrid. Which is such a good Speaker 2 (14:42) quote. It's such an astute observation Speaker 1 (14:45) as well. It must be such an old quote. It is an old quote. I Speaker 2 (14:49) can't Speaker 1 (14:49) stand by it. You definitely should because I think it's so interesting because it also encapsulates the style of your jewelry, that balance between one thing and another, creating in this kind of hybrid model, which is really interesting. And what you said also about wanting... to sell out, as in selling all your pieces without selling out and going too far. Do you think this is something that more new jewellers need to think about finding that balance? I Speaker 2 (15:20) think possibly. I mean, to be honest, I think my hybrid role is kind