Lauren Harwell Godfrey, jewelry designer, entrepreneur, and founder of Harwell Godfrey, turned a hobby into a success story.
Godfrey’s journey dates back to a career path where she sported several hats. She spent 15 years in the advertising space as a creative director and art director, collaborating with clients such as Adidas, Levi’s, and Ray-Ban. While speaking on the “Black Tech Green Money” podcast, she stated that this period in her career taught her how to communicate her visual ideas effectively.
“I think that’s really served me well in the jewelry world because, again, I’m coming up with these designs. I’m not the actual bench jeweler who makes them,” she said on the podcast with host Will Lucas.
Godfrey chose to walk away from the advertising space to nurture her spirit of creativity elsewhere. This led her to attend the San Francisco Cooking School and spend a year staging at Bar Tartine under Cortney Burns and Nick Balla, according to an interview with entrepreneur and fashion expert Melissa Akkaway. However, Godfrey was not entirely fulfilled and wanted to contribute something unique to the world, so she turned her attention to creating jewelry, which had initially started as a hobby.
She credits her entry into the jewelry space to time working with her friend Randi Molofsky, who leads a brand development agency for independent fine jewelers called for/future/reference. Her time with the company helped Godfrey gain experience in product PR and wholesale business management, as well as secure connections within the jewelry industry.
“My friend Randi Molofsky’s the founder of the showroom. I went to her when I decided I wanted to start making jewelry, and I’m like, ‘Hey, this is career No. 3. I don’t have years and years and years. I got to start getting this thing off the ground and making it successful as soon as I possibly can’… I really leveraged having a showroom and having their contacts to help me gain traction in the industry and get people to take me seriously as a person who has nothing to do with jewelry. That really helped me, and I continue to work with them,” Godfrey explained.
Today, she boasts an extensive line of jewelry, which includes a tiny gold horseshoe pendant necklace with diamond details, a skinny textured talisman bangle, and half-inch spiked talisman hoop earrings, all handcrafted and made with 18K yellow gold.
Godfrey also points to technology as an indispensable tool for elevating her designs, ensuring they stand out as truly one-of-a-kind creations. Adobe Illustrator has been helpful, particularly for features such as 2D rendering.
“I think it’s something that makes me unique as a designer, just having that sort of fluency and illustrator,” she mentioned. “I don’t think Illustrator is a very traditional jewelry design program, but it’s what I know. So I use what I know to make my things, and I don’t come at the jewelry world from a family business that I was a part of or all this heritage in the jewelry world. I’m coming at it as a designer and using the tools that I know to influence that.”
She continued, “And I think I’ve had a lot of positive feedback that my work is very identifiable. And I think part of what might make that true is because I’m able to do intricate design because I have the technology and the knowhow to use that to help me really hone in and make some very specific, very intricate patterns and things possible in my work.”
As for what’s next for Godfrey, she plans on launching a new collection by summer 2025.
