While this is just the beginning, it truly all began in the past.
This journey is a compilation of my complex history with art and creativity, the business and professional acumen I've gained from a decade spent in Corporate America plus the business building and settings that forced me to grow. Without this experience I would just be a creative person attempting to put beautiful things out into the world, which is a lovely place to be. However, that desire, to make beautiful things, adorn women with them, and have them hold meaning that last lifetimes, COMBINED with my professional experience aids my endeavors now. Essentially, I'm right where I need to be.
Unfortunately, I grew up knowing women struggle. Knowing the financial security was, arguable, paramount and that women needed agency within their own lives. While I had the privilege to witness the love between my grandparents that lasted a lifetime, I also witnessed the debt and struggle my mother endured as a single mother navigating the world on her own. While she eventually built a strong business and gained financial success later in her life, witnessing her experiences in those early years led me to turn my back on an artistic life many times, favoring the comfort and stability I did not know growing up.
Through my corporate endeavors and eventually my 6 years spent building my own real estate brand, I experienced comfort, stability and even success. I learned, watched and took everything in like a sponge. And during this time, too, I did what I could to help lift women up. With my real estate career I helped them buy and enjoy homes independently of a counterpart, male or otherwise. I worked hard to provide them opportunities to invest and understand their futures.
Now, over a decade after I officially turned my back on a creative life, I return, more enthusiastic than ever. This brand is a chance to make women feel beautiful, to give them something of meaning, something that can make them feel special, confident, whatever they are needing. while also giving them a new type of investment. Jewelry over the centuries has often been used as currency (insert helpful extra info here or history/concepts). It's used to express individuality, beauty, but also holds a specific and enduring value.
Fauna Rae is for the woman who is a little bit wild, but also appreciates the finer things in life and aspires to invest in herself. Our pieces are crafted from the highest quality materials and designed to be unique extensions of memory and self expression. The word "fauna" draws its inspiration from the earth and the world living around us, an ode to growing up a child of the outside world, of mud and sticks and trees. "Rae" is the family middle name passed down to me from my grandmother, and one of the single most valuable things I "own" that is not tangible. Together, the Fauna Rae philosophy is rooted in heritage, value, nature's profound beauty and family legacy.
It's a statement to be worn today. And a statement that lasts.