So. Many. Jewels: Behind the Scenes at Dannijo's Rad Accessories Studio
Ever wonder what goes into making a wildly successful fashion company? One of my favorite parts of being the accessories director at Teen Vogue is that I get to find out—I often visit brands to peek behind the scenes at a designer's process and inspiration for his or her collection.
This month I hung out with Danielle Snyder and Jodie Snyder Morel, the uber talented sisters behind cult-favorite accessories brand Dannijo. These two have established quite the following—whether it's Hollywood celebrities (think Beyoncé, Natalie Portman, Brooklyn Decker, and Shailene Woodley, just to name a few) or the 91K Instagram followers, these sisters should definitely be on your radar.
The Snyders debuted their jewelry line in 2008 and launched their first collection with Bergdorf Goodman. "When we started," Jodie recalls, "we were living in the East Village and it was just the two of us stringing everything together by hand." Now their jewelry collection is now sold everywhere from Neiman Marcus to Lane Crawford. Their success has a lot to do with awesomely unique, statement-making designs, but it might have just as much to do with social media, where the sisters have developed a unique relationship with their customers and share all their adventures. "Social media is like a window into our world; it truly is our authentic voice. We'll showcase our jewelry, but people also like to see what we're doing. They want to see who we are outside of the brand," says Danielle.
Follow me as I get an exclusive look at the Spring/Summer 2014 collection, talk about the launch of Dannijo handbags, and tour their HQ in New York City.
1/19Is there room for another sister?
2/19"Our studio is a refection of who we are as people and what the brand is as a whole. We're both obsessed with antique shopping and tend to collect a lot of books...most of them end up here in our studio. In addition to our vintage treasures, we display our jewelry throughout the studio on books, shelves, and walls—it's almost like it becomes our décor," says Jodie.
3/19Our tour guides: Jodie Snyder Morel (left) and Danielle Snyder (right). While middle school students in Jacksonville, Florida, these sisters taught themselves how to make jewelry by using their father's medical tools. Years later after graduating college, they launched their jewelry collection in 2008. Their unique design aesthetics—Danielle tends to be more bohemian/rock 'n' roll and Jodie tends to be more classic—truly complement each other and have made their accessories brand one of the most well-known in the industry.
4/19"Each season when we start the design process, our original ideas always seem to evolve further than we originally anticipate. We like to keep to iconic Dannijo silhouettes—think classic bibbing and layering—but build on those with new ideas, colors, and materials", says Jodie. "We usually start our collection with one strong image or idea, and this season, we were inspired by black and white film with touches of color and some tribal elements," says Danielle.
5/19"When we first started our company, we would go to a bead show in Tucson, Arizona every year. Here, we found some amazing beads and elements that we incorporated in our very first collections. A lot of our bib necklaces have vintage African coins and beads that were originally sourced from this show. This is just a glimpse of our bead collection! We keep everything because we never really know when we'll be inspired to work with it again," says Danielle.
6/19"There are so many things to account for when making jewelry: How will the piece lay on the body? Will the material be too heavy? Is the scale of the piece too large or small? To answer these questions, we'll sit down together and draw up rough sketches of the whole collection, lay out color palettes, and make a lot of samples. We are very hands-on throughout the entire design process," says Jodie.
7/19"When we started the company it was just the two of us, so we made every piece of jewelry on our own! Bergdorf Goodman was our first account, and we made the entire sample collection together in our apartment," recalls Jodie. "I have minimal jewelry-making skills, but Danielle is very advanced, so she literally made everything while I handled more of the business side. As the company has grown, we've brought in talented jewelers to help ecute our vision. Here are several versions of our iconic bib necklace. We work this silhouette into the collection each season and update it with new materials and colors."
8/19"We work with Swarovski elements each season, so we'll go through their color palette and order the stones we want to use. As for chains, we really work from our inspiration board and source styles that really grab us. We've recently started working with a company in Italy to create our own stones," says Danielle. "It takes about two months to get our samples, so we have to get our ideas out to them several months before we actually start piecing together the collection," says Jodie.
9/19"This season, we used hematite plating which we've never done before. Typically we work with oxidized silver or gold plating, but for the Noir collection, we opted for a bold black. All of the jewelry is handmade here in New York," says Danielle.
10/19"This is our stock closet, and it's basically extra inventory that we keep on hand. These pieces are used when stores want to re-order or when the website sells out of its inventory. We keep a stock closet each season and try to keep it as organized as possible...hence all the pictures," says Jodie.
11/19"We recently launched a fine jewelry capsule collection with Rashida Jones called Fine by DanniJones. It was such an organic collaboration, and our creative energy just clicked—we feel like she is our west coast sister! We wanted to create personal pieces that felt almost like a second skin; pieces you'd never want take off (stackable rings, personal pendants, etc.)," says Danielle. "Through the course of working together, we came up with this idea of three triangles symbolizing the three sisters in forward motion. We also included charms like pineapples, unicorns, and our personal favorite, the palm tree. The palm tree represents Rashida's west coast roots and our Florida upbringing. We were all very involved in the design process (think countless Skype conversations to discuss clasps, chains, and other details), and this fine jewelry design process has been something we've been really excited about," says Jodie.
12/19"We also launched handbags this season, and it's definitely been a learning experience. We wanted to treat handbags as their own entity. We kept asking ourselves, "What kind of bag does the Dannijo girl wear?" We think our customer is a girl on the go, and she's the type to take her bag from day to night and carry it season after season," says Jodie.
13/19"In 2007, Danielle co-founded a non-profit organization called L.W.A.L.A (Live With A Life-long Ambition) after visiting the village of Lwala, Kenya. We designed a capsule collection to raise money for L.W.A.L.A and because we started the company with non-profit roots, we really wanted to give back as we started to grow," says Jodie. "For the past several years we’ve been working with this company called Indego Africa in an effort empower women in underdeveloped areas around the world and help them become entrepreneurs. All the jewelry purchased on Dannijo.com comes packaged in these Indego Africa pouches (handmade in Rwanda) with a tag that has the picture and signature of the artisan who created the pouch. It’s been an amazing partnership, and it’s something we’re very passionate about," says Danielle.
14/19"We thought a lot about layering and making the bags easy to wear, but we still wanted the designs to be iconic to the Dannijo brand. One way we've been able to achieve this is by incorporating our signature bib chains on to our bags. We're really trying to incorporate jewelry elements on the bags, so they are a recognizable part of the Dannijo brand without being overly in-your-face," says Danielle.
15/19"We noticed it was difficult to find handbags with amazing hardware and jewelry touches so we wanted to create handbags using beautiful materials and textures," says Jodie. "When you think about it, a handbag is the perfect frame for your jewelry. Subtle details, like the crystal elements here, are always appreciated when you're trying to create a piece that has some longevity," says Danielle.
16/19"The Lypton crossbody bag is one of our favorite styles and best sellers. Since this was our first season designing handbags, it was really important for us to create great, classic silhouettes that we could build on season after season," says Danielle.
17/19"Though we're very much designers and creators, we also love the business side of the company. When a certain product produces amazing sales, we take that into account the next time we're designing," says Jodie. "We still create what we want, but it's nice to be in tune with what the customer is looking for. It's very important for us to be clued in to both sides of what's happening, so there's a happy marriage between design and sales," says Danielle.
18/19"These are our Dannijo fembots! They have taken on a life of their own, and we use them to showcase our iconic collections. Each one represents a different season so they've become a creative way for us to archive our collections," says Danielle.
19/19"These are some of our lookbooks from past seasons. We usually work with the same stylist, and though she's very hands-on with the creative components, she allows us to be apart of the whole styling process. For us, creating our lookbook is always a collaborative effort—it's our brand and our image, so we want to be involved whenever possible," says Jodie.
