Photo by Tim Gruber
“A touch of motivational neon helps everybody,” Larissa Loden tells me. We are standing outside of her St. Paul storefront in early September, admiring the multicolored abstract mural by Ashley Mary that encompasses her shop’s exterior. The local jewelry mogul stands out against the vibrant backdrop, clothed in a smart, midi-length black dress with a generous stacking of necklaces, gold stud earrings, and at least one ring per finger. (She forsook her proclivity toward patterns that morning to remind people that “she does in fact make jewelry for a living.”)
The story behind the mural tells me a lot about Loden within just a few minutes of meeting her. “Ashley came to me and said, ‘I have this idea, but it kind of scares me.’ And I immediately said, ‘OK, well that’s the idea we’re going with.’”
Since then, many people in the neighborhood have thanked Loden for bringing so much color and light to the historic streetscape. An optimistic story—something which Loden seems to be in abundant supply of. As we enter her store I find, among the soft rose-tinted walls and playful geometric shelving lined with her self-designed jewelry, many more stories.
Like the one behind her new “Black Sheep” collection, a line of jewelry and accessories that celebrates the eccentricities of people like Loden, who have always identified as “the black sheep of their family.” Or the one behind the giant “Inception” poster that hangs on the wall of Loden’s office—a film which Loden feels so inspired by that she often designs jewelry to its Hans Zimmer soundtrack.
But these optimistic stories that fill Loden’s shop only exist in the bright light of the larger story which made them all possible—the one where a middle school art teacher started making jewelry as a hobby, and unexpectedly fostered that hobby into a nationally recognized brand with two storefronts, 16 full-time employees, and inclusion in more than 600 retail locations nationwide.
Photo by Tim Gruber
As I sit down with Loden in her office space, the back wall of which is lined with a collection of artworks by her two young children alongside a “coffee, whiskey, repeat” sign, I begin to piece together the steady hum of chaotic genius that sustains her brand.
In many ways, Loden is exactly like your favorite childhood art teacher: animated, approachable, creative, charismatic. But at the same time, she is a lot like how you would picture a successful CEO: ambitious, methodical, indomitable, fearless. Loden recognizes this duality in herself. She likes to describe her nuanced personality as “a Venn diagram.” Not too much of one thing or the other, but just the right amount of both. Her jewelry is a little like this too—its color and charm is supplemented by an unabashed edge that is nothing short of unforgettable. (Take her locally-famed “Fu*k” earrings for example, which aim to reframe the expletive as an empowering vehicle for self-expression.) It’s easy to imagine Loden oscillating between these two states of being throughout her workday— sketching designs to Zimmer’s music one moment and taking phone calls with the co-owners of Monster Jam (one of her “dream collabs”) the next.
On that September morning, I sat down with Loden to dig a litter deeper into the many versions of her, from artist, to teacher, to mother, to business owner. At the heart of it all, I found a relentless optimist, the default version of Loden, which seems to be the one securely in the driver’s seat as she speeds ahead into 2025.
Describe your earliest memories with jewelry. Has it always been a fascination for you?
No, definitely not. I wasn’t a kid that grew up and was obsessed with jewelry. How it really started was my high school art teacher. On my chair at graduation, she left me a piece of jewelry that she made for me. It was a beaded necklace. And I really didn’t realize up until that point, that you could, like, make jewelry. Because I was an art student, I knew you could do printmaking, you could do painting, drawing, but nothing in a sculptural, 3D form had really happened for me. I think that was the moment where I was like, ‘this is cool,’ because you get to wear art. And that really bridged something for me, because I have a deep love of functional objects. So that’s how it started, and then it really just got gasoline poured on top of it, because I started making jewelry all the time. I think, if I’m being honest, I fell so much in love with the process of making jewelry and finding out what all the possibilities were because it’s a medium that you can really push. You can work in beads, you can work in metals, you can do stuff with fire and soldering, it just is really limitless. And then there’s so many ways you can wear it too—necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets, anklets. It never stops.
Photo by Tim Gruber
Was there anyone from your family or early childhood who inspired your love for art/jewelry?
Yeah, I grew up in a family of small business owners. We owned a gift store in upstate New York. It’s called the Apple Barrel, and it’s still there 30 years later. And my dad is actually an artist. He’s an architect, and my grandmother was a painter, and so a love for art was always encouraged in my family. The entrepreneurial side, however, I didn’t want at all. My family’s business has always been a little bit of a struggle. If you would have talked to 20-year-old me, I would’ve been like ‘I 1,000% never want to own my own business.’ At that point in time, I only saw one narrative, which was that it’s a struggle, and it’s a grind, and I didn’t know any other way. I think that’s part of the reason why I’ve invested so much in the right systems and structures and hiring the right people, which I do think has led to us being able to grow. A lot of the success has been because I thought, ‘if this is going to happen, I cannot have it be how it was for my parents.’
So, you started your career as an art teacher. How do you feel your experiences as an artist and educator have helped shape your business, your brand, where you are today?
I think it was really huge. I joke all the time, but I think it’s very real, that if you can manage a classroom of 35 middle schoolers, you can do anything. Being a teacher, especially in a middle school environment, you have to be quick on your toes and calm under pressure, and those are huge things that you need to have in running a business as well. You have to be able to get on your problem-solving brain and be like, ‘okay, what are my options here?’ And I really did learn that being a teacher. And also in teaching, you’re instructing, but you’re coaching as well, which is huge for when you have employees, because that’s what you’re doing.
Did you ever expect Larissa Loden to grow into a full-time venture?
No, I really didn’t. The year I decided to leave teaching, I was burning the candle at both ends. Right at the end of teaching, year seven or eight, I was what they call a teacher on special assignment. So, I was going into classrooms and observing other teachers then providing feedback on their instruction. But also, behind the scenes I had wholesale accounts. I have this very vivid memory of doing a trade show in Vegas, and then taking the red-eye flight back. So, I left Las Vegas at 1 a.m., was back in Minneapolis at 6 a.m., and then was into teacher training by 8 a.m. If you had asked me then, I would have been like, ‘look at me, I’m doing it all!’ But really what happened was, even that fall, we started getting so many wholesale accounts, and we actually signed the Smithsonian Museum. And my assistant principal at the time said to me, ‘you can always come back to teaching, but you kind of get one shot at this.’ I think that was the push I really needed. It was somebody reminding me that there is this safety net here. If it all fails, I can come back to teaching. That was the permission that I needed to go for it.
Your jewelry is known for its boldness and character, which definitely shines through in your ‘all the swears’ pieces, which show off a variety of swear words in playful fonts. How do these pieces make a statement beyond being eye-catching and fun?
I think the best part is the stories that have come out of them. It gives the wearer a certain power. We have a necklace that says ‘no,’ on it, and people will email us and be like, ‘this gave me the permission to remind myself it’s okay to say no.’ But the ‘F-word’ is another story. It’s just bananas to me that in 2024, we still get people saying ‘this is classless,’ or ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this.’ But I think that’s the cool thing about having a part of our jewelry that toes the line. It acknowledges that there is still friction about it, but it also recaptures it. At the end of the day, it is just a word, but it’s also this really fun, empowering word. And words get to change over time too. I think we’re very much in this moment of realizing that the word and what it means is changing. And also, who gets to use it.
Photo by Tim Gruber
Where do you seek inspiration for new designs?
I can tell you that I definitely can’t force it. It’s not like, ‘oh, well, if I get my cozy cup of this, and, you know, the right chair,’ it just 1,000% doesn’t happen like that. Definitely some good music helps, and I’ve some gotten really good ideas lately from long, grueling runs. But otherwise, I have realized that the more I protect my space and create boundaries around my time, and not let myself get too burnt crispy, that’s when I’ll have a lot better ideas. Going into 2025, I feel like the best is yet to come. I’ve started drawing some pretty firm boundaries around my schedule, and because of that, I think that the collections are only going to get better from here on out. I’m super pumped about the future of the brand.
Larissa Loden is set apart not just by its style, but its commitment to standing up for what you and your employees believe in, or as you say on your website, ‘giving a shit.’ How do you weave this attitude into each piece of jewelry you make?
We’re always weaving messages in, but we also do it in a very positive way. I really try to keep the brand very positive, upbeat, and relatable. Nobody likes to be told what to do. And also, shame is one of the worst things. Saying, ‘you’re a bad person because you didn’t do this, or you didn’t donate to this,’ that’s not going to change anybody. It’s not going to inspire anybody. We just exist as this weird brand that is female-run, bootstrap, and makes jewelry within our lane, but also, we try to donate and care and do things where we can in this positive light of like, ‘hey, come along with us. There’s room for everybody.’ I always call it my weird lunch table, and everybody’s invited. It’s very intentional to do it, but to do it in a way that hopefully always feels inviting to people, not polarizing. Just warm.
Sustainability seems like it’s a big part of this attitude and a central part of your brand. Can you touch on that?
Jewelry is a very strange industry. Full transparency, it’s not a very sustainable industry. We really try to take intentional steps where we can to make it more so. We’re very much in the infancy stages of it, but I hope that in several years, we’ll be able to make a lot of regular jewelry in this new form called PVD, or particle vapor distribution. Instead of plating, which is not a very environmentally friendly process, the metals are getting kiln baked onto the jewelry. So, when you see jewelry now that’s rust-, sweat-, and waterproof. That’s PVD jewelry, and it has a much longer shelf life. Where we’ve tried to have this very unique Venn diagram is making the highest quality jewelry possible, but also making it as affordable as we can for a lot of people. There’s such great fine jewelry out there, but holy bananas it’s expensive. I didn’t grow up with money like that, so it’s always been very important to me to try to make jewelry as accessible as possible.
Photo by Tim Gruber
Later in this issue, there is a feature about how experiential shopping has changed the face of retail, and it specifically mentions Larissa Loden as being a master of this concept. How did you arrive early at the idea of experiential shopping and how do you continue to spark ideas to keep shoppers on their toes?
Human connection is super important to me. When I bring a group of people together for a workshop or event, I always like to joke and say, ‘congratulations, you could literally have a new best friend in this room,’ because the funnel is already there. That’s just really important to me. The loneliness epidemic is something I think about a lot. So, I aim to bring that community aspect into the store but to do it in a way that is new, different, and exciting. One of our core values in our company is to be evolutionary. When we opened the first store, we always intended to have events here and bring community together. But I was like, ‘we are not just going to have another sip and shop.’ I want us to always push the envelope and see where we can go to excite the community. Small businesses, we need to work a little harder than we did before to bring people into our stores. But also, that’s kind of a fun challenge. We always like to say, ‘what would get us going to a store?’ And then, like ‘what would be our version of that?’
Earlier this year you opened your second storefront location at Mall of America (MOA). What does it mean to you to extend your brick-and-mortar presence, especially into such a prominent retail destination as MOA?
I wasn’t sure at first if we wanted to own multiple stores or not. Once you start adding on stores, you do add on a layer of complexity. The Twin Cities shopping scene is very neighborhood specific, so the most logical spot, when we were thinking about it, was MOA. If you’re visiting Minnesota, you’re going there. So, it’s been really fun to have the store there. The MOA team is 10 out of 10 the best, they’ve been so supportive of us since we’ve opened up. I do have to say, it’s so interesting that Minnesotans have this love-hate relationship with the mall. It’s just so funny, because I totally love going there. It has everything you need. I think that Minnesotans need to fall back in love with MOA.
You recently started a podcast with a friend of yours called ‘The World’s Okayest Entrepreneur.’ What inspired you to share your experiences, knowledge, insight with the world? How do you hope it will impact listeners?
So, my really good friend Andrew and I just love listening to podcasts together. One day, I texted him and said, ‘we either need to start a podcast or I have to get back to work. I cannot talk to you about another podcast.’ And so, we did. It’s been so awesome bringing on other people and talking to them about their experiences running businesses. There’s just so much that goes into running a business that we don’t get to see or hear. I always tell people when they come on, ‘let’s see you 100%, you don’t have to spill all the beans, but please spill some, because that’s why we’re all here.’ And that’s the only way that people learn. I think it’s so interesting because we call them failures, but they’re really just learning moments. Your learnings are going to be huge valuable learnings for somebody else too. Sometimes it’s the push somebody else needs.
What pieces are you most excited to wear or see shoppers wear this holiday season?
The Black Sheep collection is really near and dear to my heart, especially as a self-identified black sheep. What I’m really excited about is, a little bit like the swear word jewelry, it’s going to become this bit of self-representation and that ownership of ‘yeah, I’m a little bit different,’ but owning it, which I’m really excited about. And then in the holiday collection itself, we’re kind of going back. We went back and looked at our data, and a lot of our customers loved when we did a little bit more of a traditional holiday collection. That being said, on the designer side, I was like, ‘okay, cool. How do we make it glitzy and glammy, but in my way?’ And so, we have some very fine geometric designs coming out that are Opal and CZ inspired. They’re just fun, and I’m really excited for people to see them this holiday season, because I think it’s going to be that nice little add-on for everybody’s outfit.
Photo by Tim Gruber
