4/20/2004
Sol Chicks Combines Fun with Fashion in the April Edition of ONE Magazine
 Funky Fashion
Omaha’s Sol Chicks combine fun with fashion
Story by: Natalie J.S. Haley
Photos by: Jacquline Larence
Compliment Nikki Kinsey on her handbag and her blue eyes light up. “Isn’t it great!” she exclaims. “It’s from a new designer. We don’t even have her on the web site yet.”
The web site is www.solchicks.com, the homepage for Sol Chicks Design. Sol Chicks is the 18-month-old brainchild of Kinsey and her partner Christiana Jarvis.
The site features hand painted glassware by Kinsey and Jarvis, jeans hand-painted by Kinsey, jewelry crafted by Jarvis and handbags and jewelry from other designers the two have invited to join them.
“Our focus this year will be pulling in more talent, women with companies like ours, making beautiful products like jewelry and handbags, but who maybe don’t have the resources,” Kinsey said. “It makes us look bigger and gives them some exposure.”
In addition to functional artwork by Jarvis and Kinsey, the site features jewelry from designers Lisa Albers and Jen Carlson as well as handbags from Jaimee Napp.
Kinsey said the site will soon feature handbags from Posh by Tori, a year-old business featured in Seventeen and Lucky magazines and designer of Kinsey’s “Drama Queen” purse, handbags from Amber Close of Florida and jewelry from Leila Cools of Canada.
“We’ve actually had to turn some artists away, some pottery, some jewelry, because the weren’t a fit,” Kinsey said. “We get samples of painted jeans and martini glasses all the time. We are looking at expanding into glassware accessories like bar ware, party ware, coasters, placements ad wine glass markers.”
Kinsey attended Dana College in Blair, Neb., where she majored in graphic design and fine art. Jarvis attended the University of Nebraska Lincoln, majoring in marketing and teaching herself web design along the way. The two became friends a few years ago when they worked together. Now in their mid-20’s, both still work full-time jobs and put in full-time hours on Sol Chicks as well.
“We always wanted to do something together – a restaurant, graphic design or web design,” Kinsey said. “I was painting jeans and Chris was making jewelry and painting martini glasses, and we decided to start a web site. At first I did apparel and Chris did glass, but I wasn’t making any money, so I told her to hand over part of the glass business.”
Jarvis has been an avid collector of martini glasses for years.
”I think that they are really neat, and art form in themselves,” she said. “I have about 30 glasses I’ve collected, each with a different design. At one point I bought a glass and thought, ‘I could do that.’”
Jarvis and Kinsey purchase glassware in bulk from an Omaha distributor and decorate it with their own designs. Initially a secondary product line, glassware now accounts for about 85% of sales.
“We’ve started doing a lot of custom work,” Jarvis said. “People call or write to request certain designs, like a rubber duckie, or something to match their existing glassware. We’re also doing glasses for wedding gifts, personalized with the names and date. Glassware can be used for all occasions, from a normal dinner with family to a birthday party.”
Inspiration can come from anywhere, Jarvis said.
“I’ll see something that catches my eye, like colors in a sweater, a painting or something interesting in a newspaper, and I can see the glass design in my head,” she said. “Sometimes the design is something that I think will work well with the shape of the glass.”
Jarvis got the idea for her Summer Shower pattern, which features sprays of dots in shades of blue and white, while sitting in her car at a touchless car wash. Her Deco Diva design was inspired by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
“I was looking at a book about his work and the lines made me think about what I could do on glass,” she said.
Kinsey’s painted jeans include everything from flowers on Feelin’ Groovy to flamingos on Think Pink to orange and black geometric shapes on After Party.
“I’m really more of an analytical artist,” she said. “I see a need for a new look or design, and then figure out how to create it. So, when I research current fashion designs, I look for a way to take what I see and turn it into something different. The painted denim designs reflect a certain timeliness, which appealing to current fashion trends, however the designs themselves are developed to be more timeless.”
The artists see themselves as trendsetters rather than market followers.
“When I paint a piece, I’m not looking at what’s already out there,” Jarvis said. “I try to create unique glasses you can’t find anywhere else.”
From epiphany to ecommerce too about three months. With their backgrounds in art, graphic design and web design, Kinsey and Jarvis created their own logo, print materials and web site.
“We went though a list of about 100 names,” Kinsey said. “We wanted something fun, young and funky. We liked sol because it means sun and chicks-well, we don’t take ourselves too seriously. The site isn’t stuffy and corporate, but it also doesn’t look like two girls sitting at home on a computer. We look like a large company, thanks to Chris’ web site.”
Sol Chicks initially based its product on the preferences of the owners. As the site has developed, the owners have analyzed sales and shifted more toward what customers want.
“For the 18-24 year-old, we want to have some thing less than $100,” Kinsey said. “Our higher end pieces go 75% to women and 25% to men, mostly professionals in their 30’s to 50’s. A good portion of it is gut. We know our market. We see something we like, and we know if we can make it, change it, or make it better. It’s hit and miss, but more hit than miss.
A few retail stores carry Sol Chicks Designs.
“That was a bigger push a year ago, when we weren’t sure how the web site would go,” Kinsey said. “We don’t have a sales rep, so we’re not actively soliciting retail stores.”
Having control of their business is important to Kinsey and Jarvis.
“The reward is that everything we do is for ourselves,” Jarvis said. “We have control over what we look like as a company and what we do as a company.”
Sol Chicks hopes to acquire studio space in the net couple of years and to incorporate more artists, especially local talent.
The company received some positive press when John Carroll who appeared on the Survivor television series, mentioned Sol Chicks during a radio interview. The site was also featured in an Italian cooking magazine, with two large photos.
Kinsey said Jon Smith, a vice president at Corporate 3 Design, has been a mentor for the business.
“He always told us, ‘Nothing you do is luck. You know what you’re doing. Don’t listen to outside sources. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake.
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