Viviana Langhoff is the talented designer behind Adornment+Theory, a cool little jewelry store in downtown Chicago that’s getting lots of buzz lately – partly for the owner’s advocacy for BIPOC design and culture.
Not all jewelry in Viviana’s store comes from the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) community. Aesthetics are always her first consideration. But from the outset, she strived for cultural diversity in the designers she carries and she promotes their work with colorful flair.
Viviana was born in Puerto Rico and came to Chicago from Miami to learn about art and fashion at the Art Institute of Chicago. There, she discovered jewelry and metalsmithing, and stayed in the city to pursue a career in fine jewelry.
Adornment+Theory opened in Logan Square in 2017. In her physical shop and online, Viviana established a reputation as a fashionista, designer of elegant jewels, and retailer of fashion-forward fine jewelry.
Her own jewelry designs have an Art Deco vibe and a sense of glamor reminiscent of Old Hollywood. She and her staff work hard but clearly have lots of fun.
Your Instagram is a party, literally. Zoom dance parties, pairings of sourdough bread with jewelry – the ultimate pandemic joke.
Viviana: Humor and style is a big part of what we do. We always try to take something from pop culture and have fun with it. Just because we’re in the luxury business doesn’t mean we have to take ourselves too seriously.
Describe the Adornment + Theory brand.
Our brand is elegant, clean but also edgy, stylish, a little sexy, a bit maximalist. We keep a pulse on pop culture and fashion.
How much of what we see on Instagram comes from you?
I lay out a branding board, a vision board for the year, so my staff has parameters in which to play. All of the ladies contribute. It’s not all planned ahead of time. I might come in and say, ‘I want to do a Sopranos theme Instagram story’ and they take it from there.
Lots of pinkie rings in that one! How big is your staff?
Pre-pandemic there were four staffers. But in 2020 had to make reductions to stabilize the business. We are now a team of three but looking to grow in the near future.
What made you want to open a storefront?
As far back as I can remember, I wanted to open my own space. My background is fine art and several members of my family own and operate businesses. It was instilled in me early on, whether in design or fine art, I needed to be able to support myself.
How did you translate your jewelry brand to the space?
I designed the store to be high design and accessible luxury, a little Art Deco, a little Moroccan. I used patterned concrete tile, white walls and polished gold fixtures. Everything from our scent to the music we play is part of the experience. Currently on rotation: Bad Bunny, Françoise Hardy, Chika, and Billie Holiday.
I wanted the store to feel warm and luxurious but never pretentious. People don’t usually remember what you say but they remember how you make them feel. When you enter my store, I want it to feel like you’re coming into someone’s home.
How much of your store is your design?
It’s all me. I did a CAD rendering of the whole store and every cent was accounted for. Every piece of furniture was custom-built to fit exactly.
How bad was 2020 for you?
Financially or emotionally? (laughs) By the grace of the lord, we did well. I am humbled and grateful that we had a profitable year. It was not what I was projecting but I have very aggressive projections. But it was hard! ‘Busting our asses’ does not begin to describe the work my team and I put in.
What was the worst of it?
We had to shut around March 15. For me, mentally and emotionally, those next three weeks were pure triage. You know how the human response is flight, fright or freeze? I am hard-wired to fight, I don’t freeze.
I was hustling non-stop. By week one, I had built six contingency plans. It felt like my heart was racing for the first three weeks. It was hard just trying to keep a positive outlook and continue to lead. By June, we were ready to reopen.
Then all hell broke loose?
And then Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor were murdered. It was devastating. Our store is in the middle of the city, so what most people saw on television? We were living it.
We were clearing the store and boarding up windows with protests and the National Guard in our streets. We participated in protests as a staff and packed donations, all while trying to reopen the store during a pandemic.
I could not be more proud of my staff. We were shoulder to shoulder.
So you were at the epicenter of the riots but positioned with a BIPOC focus in place. Were you able to incorporate that in a positive way?
From the inception of the store, I was looking for black and brown artists. But when I would go to trade shows like NYNOW, Melee or AGTA, every jeweler in sight was a White woman. If I saw someone of color at a booth, I’d come up to them all excited and ask if they were the designer. They were always like, ‘No. I’m just working for the designer.’ It was disheartening.
I know those aisles. It’s a white world. When BLM took off and all these Black jewelry designers were suddenly in the spotlight…
I was overjoyed. American jewelry design is a white woman’s world. Those of us in the field who are minorities, we’ve talked about this for a long time.
People have to realize we are here but there are enormous barriers to entry for the jewelry industry. Whether it’s entrance fees to NYNOW or JCK, or the cost of building a collection. So often fine jewelry is a legacy business, a family business that’s passed down.
You already had BIPOC designers in your inventory, you just hadn’t put that front and center in your marketing?
Yes. Finding, fostering, and promoting BIPOC designers has always been a compass point for how I do my buying and how I’ve curated this space. Up until June it had been an in-house priority.
Now, because of everything that’s happened in 2020, we’ve made it public. We are in a unique position. I figured the jig’s up. I might as well just say it!
There’s an opportunity in this time and I’m trying to build on it, and ride it and promote others.
Assuming somewhat normal life returns by summer, is there a plan A and a plan B?
I do have plans. I always do a vision casting for the year and 2021 is no exception. Like most entrepreneurs, I lean towards blinding optimism and have a fairly high risk tolerance. It’s important to do contingency plans whether it’s a bull or bear year.
But realistically, I don’t know where the economy will be. I feel like I’ve been going 110mph this past year. I have goals but I’m also trying to find some balance. The conversation between contentment, rest and ambition is always interesting to me. It’s a tightrope I walk daily.
You’re the creative mind behind this brand. It’s crucial to step back and regroup, but not so easy when you have to cut staff and operate with reduced resources. Any positive lessons from that?
A lot of good things came out of this. Before 2020, Tracy Matthews [of Flourish and Thrive Academy] had a series on training your customer to buy from you online. I listened to a couple of her podcasts. As a result, in 2019, our biggest priority was how to train our customers to buy from us online. We laid some good foundation in 2019.
But it was like drinking at a firehose in 2020. Everything hit at once. It was all I could do to just keep up.
How do you train your customers to buy from you online?
Tracy had some good tips. One was to give coupons to customers in-store to buy from us online during a certain period of time. Whether they used it or not, it made them aware we had an online store.
You have to make sure your website communicates what you need it to. If somebody comes in and says, ‘I saw this ring online. Do you have it in store?’ I consider that an online sale.
Do you think people will continue to do their pre-purchase shopping online and come into stores with intention?
Yes, and I think retailers should consider that online sales. People get discouraged because put all this work into their websites then don’t see sales there. But when you’re an independent jeweler at a show and someone says, ‘Oh, I follow you online and and I saw this on your website!’ Understand your website did the work for you.
Our main avenues now are our website and Instagram. That’s where we get most of our engagement.
If someone came to you wanting to open their own shop after all this, what advice would you give them?
Community is key. Here in Chicago many of us business owners are friends and we support each other. I’ve often noticed when people start businesses, they get paranoid and fearful of competition. It’s a kind of scarcity mentality: ‘Oh no! There’s another store down the street that also sells jewelry.’ I see that affect people’s decision making, their confidence and focus, especially women.
I believe in putting blinders on, especially if you’re feeling anxious and insecure. Just focus on your God-given talents and your visuals. Trust that anything you produce will come solely from you. No one can replicate what you’re doing because they’re not the source of it. As for other local businesses, there’s plenty to go around.
You posted a quote recently that spoke to me. To paraphrase: if you are true to yourself and don’t follow the crowd, it will turn some people off. But if you aren’t true to yourself, your people will never find you.
Your tribe will find you. I love Seth Godin’s marketing theory that you only need 1,000 true fans. If you have 1,000 people who are ride-or-die for you and love everything you produce, you don’t need 40,000 people following you.
Numbers and followers are an illusion anyway. I have friends who own stores with a massive online following, but they tell me customers aren’t buying. People come in and take photos to post on Instagram and then leave.
Don’t allow other people’s numbers to psych you out. Your creativity and work is going to speak to your special tribe. You are not meant for everybody. You can be the juiciest, ripest peach in the world and there will still be somebody who hates peaches. [laughter]
Check out the Adornment+Theory website by clicking on the logo below.
