The Materialist : Erin Sachse Nathan

The designer behind ERINESS talks about getting discovered at 18, finding meaning in ladybugs, balancing creativity with commerce, and building a jewelry brand on her own terms.Erin Sachse Nathan never intended to start a jewelry company.She had been making things for as long as she could remember—knitting, building a camera out of wood and a drawer, and, beginning in seventh grade, making jewelry by hand. It was simply what she did: a way to work with her hands and create objects that made people happy.Then, at 18, while working at Fred Segal before starting college, a jewelry buyer noticed one of Erin’s handmade bracelets.The buyer asked Erin to make one for her and offered a deal: if she received ten compliments while wearing it, she would carry the bracelets at Fred Segal. The next day, she got her ten compliments—and asked Erin for her brand name and wholesale prices.Erin had neither.“I was like, ‘What’s wholesale?’” she remembers.That unexpected encounter became the beginning of ERINESS. Erin spent the money she earned working at Fred Segal on gemstones and began producing wire-wrapped “daisy chains”—delicate hand chains made by wrapping individual beads in wire. Fred Segal became her first retailer. By the time she graduated from college, she was selling through roughly ten stores, filling reorders between exams and occasionally selling jewelry directly off her body to people who stopped her on the street.There was no grand business plan behind it. The jewelry worked because it was unmistakably hers.“I think because it was so authentic to who I am and who I was at the time, people really gravitated toward it,” she says.From a Side Project to a Fine-Jewelry BrandAs graduation approached and Erin’s friends began accepting conventional jobs, she faced a decision: treat the business as a college side project or find out what it could become.“This is the time to try it,” she decided.She returned to Los Angeles, found an office near the Jewelry District and began searching for production partners. Using everything she had earned from her gemstone jewelry, she financed the transition into fine jewelry herself.ERINESS has remained self-funded ever since.That independence has shaped Erin’s approach to growth. She is ambitious, but uninterested in building at the expense of the life—or the company—she wants to have.“My motto has always been slow and steady,” she says. “I don’t need to be the biggest brand in the world. I want to be my brand.”For Erin, thoughtful growth means being ready when an important retailer comes calling, rather than chasing distribution before the company can support it. It means finding exceptional production, protecting the quality of the work and surrounding herself with people who are better than she is at the parts of the business that do not come naturally to her.Her mind is most at home with the next collection: the colors, gemstones, drawings and campaign imagery. Pricing models and operational spreadsheets are necessary, but they are not where she wants to spend her creative energy.That division is one of the central tensions of building an independent brand. Vision may give a company its reason to exist, but execution determines whether it survives. The jewelry still has to be priced correctly, produced beautifully and delivered when promised.Erin has learned to let other people help carry that responsibility.The Collection That Changed EverythingThe emotional center of ERINESS can be found in its Ladybug Collection.While Erin’s mother was in hospice, Erin dreamed that her room was filled with ladybugs. The dream felt comforting rather than frightening. The following day, while sitting with her mother, Erin received a news alert reporting that an enormous swarm of ladybugs had flown over Los Angeles the previous night.That evening, she went home and drew an entire collection.“It was like someone took over my hand,” she says.Erin initially doubted that anyone would want to wear ladybug jewelry. Instead, the collection sold immediately—and customers began sharing their own stories. For many, ladybugs represented a mother, grandmother, grandfather or another loved one who had died.The collection revealed something fundamental about jewelry: its meaning does not end with the designer. Once a piece leaves the studio, its owner gives it a new history.“You know where you got that ring,” Erin says. “You know who gave you those earrings. You know, when you bought that necklace, what you were going through in your life.”The Ladybug Collection helped establish a deeper creative language for ERINESS. The jewelry could be j