A chat with Hope & Lindsey of Potter + Clay
By Katelyn M (@Skatelynmat)
“We aren’t the first people to do clay earrings,” Hope Roman, one half of Potter & Clay, told me over coffee on a cold and rainy day. Any Pinterest search or implementation of a few choice Instagram hashtags will prove this statement true – polymer clay earrings have found a place in the world of trendy gals with Insta-worthy style. From casual flair all the way to upscale chic, these lightweight and modern danglies are definitely having a moment. “We tried our hardest to be authentic and genuine with the way we announced it,” Lindsey Hafling, the second half of Potter & Clay and best friend of Hope, lends insight into how the accidental business took flight. “We didn’t go and follow a bunch of people who we knew liked earrings. We shared it with our friends who shared it with their friends.”
Lindsey and Hope are the perfect pair – both of them have a way of making you feel like you’ve known them all your life. Both of them have warm, kind personalities, and each one is more humble than the other. They are Potter & Clay, through and through – everything they create is created with their hands. They are what gives Potter & Clay its undeniable charm. And for many people in Louisville (and, thanks to a wholesale account down south, Texas), Potter & Clay is crafting perfect pairs of earrings at prices that are accessible to almost anyone. Last Saturday at the Made Market the girls sold 200 pairs of earrings in less than 4 hours, and their monthly Instagram shop-drops are a mad dash of buyers trying to claim their favorite pair before the next shopper swoops in.
What is it then, if they aren’t the first to craft these clay beauties, that has stolen the hearts of so many? Ask Hope, and she will tell you that the price is a major plus. “A lot of the clay earrings that we see are very expensive,” she says with trepidation, “and I don’t want to say what sets us apart is our price… because the quality is the same, and we’ve worked hard to maintain (that) quality.” An average price for a pair of clay earrings in “trendier” areas ranges from forty to fifty dollars, but at Potter & Clay, prices range anywhere from fifteen to thirty-three dollars. Hope adds that their pricing was “intentional… we wanted people that were in college, who didn’t have full-time jobs, to be able to afford our earrings.” Lindsey adds that the social aspect of the business was integral in their success – word of mouth, along with Instagram as a selling platform, is how they were able to turn a hobby between friends into a full-blown local trend.
Such a trend, in fact, that they were asked to do a pop-up shop at Madewell in The Oxmoor Center in St. Matthews. Their crowning moment, though, was a pop-up shop at Quills Coffee in St. Matthews, at which they were able to sell over one hundred pairs of earrings in less than three hours. The line that day was constant, and many women were purchasing more than one pair at a time (I was one of them). I thought back to that image and I wondered, what exactly these women felt when they picked their favorite pair? Lindsey told me that they want their fanbase to feel “beautiful, confident, and sassy… how we do when we wear them! Because, we wear them, and we’re proud of them.” As they should be.
Not only are Lindsey and Hope creating beautiful accessories, they are incredibly, accidentally business savvy. With free advertising from their fanbase on social media, a no-middle-man selling platform with Instagram, and plentiful connections from one fan, friend, or family member to the next, they have stumbled upon the perfect formula for expanding their business, possibly into something bigger than either of them could have imagined. As a fan myself, I’ll be the first to say that I can’t wait to see what is in store for Lindsey and Hope – whatever is next for them just means more swag for the rest of us.
Follow Potter + Clay on instgram @Potterxclay
