and manufacturing out of her Newport store.
Company: Erica Zap Designs
Owner: Erica Zap
Location: 477 Thames St., Newport
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Employees: eight
Type of business: upscale jewelry retail and manufacturing
Annual revenues: WND
Jewelry should be wearable art – a luxury that not only is pleasing to the
eye, but also flatters each woman who wears it, accentuating her best features.
This is Erica Zap’s adage, as owner and creator of Erica Zap Designs, an upscale
jewelry store in the heart of Newport.
“The jewelry has to work, not only as a piece of jewelry, but it also has
to work on the person,” she said. “It’s an empowerment piece, I think. A woman
wears it to be more beautiful or to attract more attention to herself. It has
to be wearable art.”
Freshwater pearls, semi-precious stones and metal are integral to Zap’s collection
of rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces for men and women, which she designs
and manufactures with the help of a small staff working above her retail store.
In addition to her retail store, customers can also shop online at www.ericazap.com.
Often her inspirations come from customers who adapt an existing piece to
something they like. Zap also pays careful attention to seasonal clothing color
trends, as well as the latest jewelry styles, although she doesn’t always subscribe
to them.
“After doing it for so many years, part of it is seeing what’s going on in
the market,” she said. “Some of it is customer-driven. Other times I experiment
and see what they like, and I might design more items around what is successful.
I had trouble when things went tiny, but I never really did that, and people
would come in and tell me they were glad I didn’t do that.”
Zap moved from New York to Newport 10 years ago and opened her store, though
she has been making her own jewelry for years. In addition to her store in Newport,
Zap also wholesales a majority of her collection to museum stores, galleries
and boutiques all over the country, and sells through catalogues like Smithsonian,
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts catalogue, Coldwater Creek and Red Envelope.
The New York native also has private label lines for clients like Ann Taylor
Loft.
Between the wholesale, retail and trade shows, Zap said the work is never
done, and Zap is often on the road selling and showcasing her work. She still
finds time, however, to design new collections and makes some of them as well.
The design process is a free-flowing one, where Zap sits down at the worktable
with a bunch of different colored pearls, some stones and a little silver cord
or other metal. She and her employees play with combinations of the materials,
until something clicks. After the right elements are chosen, Zap and her staff
can put together a necklace, bracelet or pair of earrings in as little as 30
to 45 minutes.
There are many elements that Zap considers when designing and making her jewelry
– how a piece would fall on a person, its length, how a pair of earrings might
look on a variety of ear lobes, how different jewelry might flatter a certain
face shape or neck.
“When something’s good, we know it,” she said. “I also really enjoy playing
with color, putting a piece together and seeing the size, shape and scale of
the piece.”
Zap gets her stones and pearls from New York suppliers; the Chinese freshwater
pearls she buys come in varied shapes and sizes – even square. Her mesh collection
is woven in Attleboro; pre-assembly of metal items is done in Lincoln, and the
casting and polishing takes place in Warwick. And although her education in
metals from State University of New York at New Paltz has served her well in
the jewelry business, she has always had a love for handmade arts and crafts.
“When I grew up, my parents had an international handcraft store,” Zap said.
“I grew up in an environment where the store was open and to a lot of arts and
crafts.” In college, she gradually took more arts courses, finally settling
on metals. A friend introduced her to Newport, and she immediately took to the
location.
In addition to her regular jewelry designing and manufacturing, Zap also does
custom pieces, often for weddings or other special occasions (though she doesn’t
do wedding bands). Custom items are usually based on an existing piece Zap has,
and a customer wants the length, color, or number of strands on a necklace or
bracelet changed. They might want a different finish on a metal piece or the
stone drop changed on a lariat necklace.
“We sell to this woman who owns a store in Chicago, and she knows exactly
what she wants,” and orders a number of items that are variations on a regular
piece, Zap said. This is also another way the designer usually ends up expanding
her collection – other people see the item and want one, and it’s so popular,
it becomes a regular retail item. The collections are constantly changing based
on what her customers want and like, and it keeps Zap on her toes.
“I like when something looks really good on (customers) and they tell me it’s
their favorite, or that they’ve gotten more comments on one of my pieces than
anything else,” she said. “It’s the challenge of being able to design a product
that looks good on someone, and makes a statement.”
Although Zap considers her store – which sells other novelties like candles,
clocks and other gifts – to be an upscale jewelry store, prices range from affordable
to expensive. Prices vary from $24 for a pair of earrings to $350 for a sterling
silver necklace or multi-strand pearl necklace with stones. The average price,
she said, is $70.
“Our quality is good, and all of our jewelry is guaranteed,” Zap said. “I
think (customers) are paying for the fact that they like my design sense and
it’s not something they’d generally see in a department store, and they like
the wearability.”
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