Southport Magazine

This month we chatted with Renee Ward of Renee’s Fine Jewelry (at 602 N. Howe Street in Southport). Renee has spent her lifetime in the jewelry business, and we wanted to know more about how she makes her business shine and sparkle.

You’ve been in business since 1976 — so, you literally grew up in the jewelry business?  Yes, we’ve been in business since 1976. I was actually six years old when I started working in the store, doing anything from watch batteries, to taking apart watches, playing with clocks and doing small, minor jewelry repair, cleaning jewelry and doing all the different things you do in a jewelry store. 

With a lifetime of experience yourself, do you also draw from your family’s experience?

Most people that have jewelry stores, especially the full service jewelry stores, it’s typically family. Not very many people just start up a jewelry store, because it’s very hard to do and there are so many facets in a jewelry store and learning all the aspects of appraisals, repairs, design work, special ordering…I’ve been doing it for 40 years and I am still learning to this day. I’ve done it my whole life, I managed the Reed’s stores when I was in Raleigh in my 20s. I stayed there for just over three years, came back and worked in the jewelry store with with my family for the next year and a half, and then I was blessed to stay at home for five years to be with my children. And then what did I do but come back to what I do. If it works, and you love it…

Your customers can find fine jewelry as well as more casual, coastal-themed jewelry — how do you strike that balance and offer something for everyone? I think being a female jeweler makes a big difference in the jewelry field and in knowing what women want. I know a lot of my male counterpart jeweler friends, they struggle with trying to figure that part out. They have to depend on some of their employees to figure out what women like. Being in the business for as long as I have I, it’s just very easy to be able to know what sells, to know what women like, know what they find attractive, and of course, I’m very good at price-pointing pieces too. I don’t carry things that are too expensive. I want everyone to have a very good value, and also a wide range of things. Sometimes I am trying new lines, sometimes I am doing this and that and I go to a lot of different shows, probably six international jewelry shoes a year, so I am finding new pieces. With being in business for so long, and being female, I do like to experiment with new lines and I do find a lot of one-of-a-kind pieces as well. I think that separates me from most other jewelry stores, because 50 percent of the jewelry I have in here is one-of-a-kind and I can’t get back in again — once it’s sold, it’s gone. It’s just the luck of the draw, who gets it first. Probably the other 50 percent, I can reorder. I basically hand pick all these pieces out at very good prices, or we make them.  

Can you tell us more about your design services? How do you work with clients to bring their vision to reality? I think I give a lot of very individual design to my customers. I have done thousands and thousands of different designs, of any caliber, anything from simple to the most intricate and unique details you can imagine in a piece of jewelry. I sit down with the customer, I listen to the customer. It’s very important to listen to what they want because I don’t believe in trying to talk them into something that is not their vision. We go through books, we go through different things for inspiration, and then I write everything down and get all the information that I need. And then it’s a process, but I am very in tune to talking to the customer and giving them set-by-step what is going on and what we need to to. Then, after we get the price down, the style down, and everything else, then I do a three-dimensional CAD design, because that is basically a failsafe method. I can’t tell you how many designs I have had to redo for customers because the customer hated the design that another jeweler did, whether it was someone out of town or out of state, and then they come to me because they’ve heard about the way we do business. Once they see the CAD design, they can see it from every single angle, and that’s when we actually do it. I don’t like surprises. I like customers to know exactly what they’re getting. Out of all the designs we have done, and we do an awful lot of them, every single customer says it is so much more beautiful than they ever expected, even when they saw the CAD. We do some semi-custom as well. I take the stones, and I have access to hundreds of thousands of different mountings, earrings, rings, bracelets, all kinds of things, and then we put it together for them. There are so many different options for people. It just depends on if somebody wants that one-of-a-kind piece. We can make it simplistic or as intricate as needed. If someone comes in with a unique ring, like a wedding ring, and they want a designed ring for the other side but it’s no longer made, then we can can make an exact match. Literally, if you think it, we can do it. It’s just a fun thing for me to do. I love design work.

How have your been dealing with the pandemic – we imagine people have still wanted to have shiny new things, and special occasions don’t stop for a pandemic.

Everybody is learning as we go. This year has been very challenging for everyone, to say the least. As far as the masks, the social distancing, being closed for six weeks – that was a very big challenge as well. Once we got open, it was game on. We did great, we did wonderful all the way up until the hurricane hit. I’m from Southport, so this is my home, and historically, anytime we have a hurricane, it takes about a month for everybody to kind of recover, recoup and get over the mental anguish and then we start to get back on track again. And it’s an election year, which has been stressing everybody out, and then the pandemic on top of it. It’s been challenging, and because of everything that we do, which is appraisals, jewelry and watch repair, diamonds, even a lot of free advice, special ordering, we have still been busy because we’ve been in the area so long. People just know me. Sometimes they don’t even know my name, they just know me as the jewelry lady. Which, that’s not a bad thing to be known for. 

Retail therapy – there’s nothing like it. The beautiful thing about it is that when you walk in here, you see so many different designs, and it’s affordable. That’s the best part. I try to keep my prices very low. We have a lot of fabulous, gorgeous, expensive pieces, we have a a lot of mid-price pieces, we have a lot of lower to mid-price pieces, and then a lot of nautical pieces, pearls, beautiful colored jewelry, everyday jewelry. I like to have a lot of variety. I don’t like to look like everybody else. 

What’s your favorite gemstone, and why? What is your go-to piece of jewelry that you find yourself wearing most often, or do you change it up a lot?

I like blue. It’s my favorite color and it sells really well around here, so in here you’ll see all types and shapes and colors of blue gemstones. Probably my favorite is sapphire or the beautiful Swiss Blue Topaz. I just love both of those colored stones. I think they go well with most skin coloring. And of course diamonds – you can’t go wrong with diamonds. I do like to change it up. Today I am wearing sapphires and a beautiful aquamarine. Sometimes I just sell a bracelet right off my wrist because someone will say it looks beautiful, because it always looks so much more beautiful on than it is in the case. It’s a lot of work, a lot of responsibility, and it’s a lot of fun. I consider it a happy business. You’re making somebody happy. When it comes to the design work, you’re taking something that is so special to someone and you’re creating something that they can wear every day. Those kind of things mean a lot to me. I love doing surprise engagements, because I feel like part of their story. I love jewelry and I love people and I am very honest. That has got me through the past umpteen years in the business. I am very thankful for people to see me and know they can trust me. 

Is there anything else you’d like us all to know? We are here and we’re taking everything day-to-day. We’re working more on our social media and getting our website up and running, but we are still here five days a week for you. We do deliveries, we send pictures to people, I have people who message me, email, text. We give a level of service that you really don’t find much anymore. We’re way different and way better than anything that you could find online, and we’re priced better too.