Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Silvano & Melissa Clarke Barba. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Silvano & Melissa, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
We love surrounding ourselves with like minded, creative people. It’s also a huge help when one of our customers wants us to create a new product for them. We will design it from scratch (pattern, sizing & execution). This gives us ideas for future products and definitely opens the creative door in our heads.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Clarke & Barba is an L.A. based company established in 2009 by wife and husband Melissa Clarke and Silvano Barba. Inspired by a mutual love of fashion and their unique take on everyday classics, we created a line of fine handcrafted leather goods and accessories that combine elegance with edge, and solely create each product from start to finish.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
We’ve been lucky enough to have worked in many different companies, from small businesses to corporations. By working in various positions from stockroom/shipping to customer service, sales and marketing…in 2015 we felt confident enough with well-rounded knowledge to take the leap and leave the corporate world and focus on Clarke and Barba full time to fulfill his dream of having his own business while simultaneously satisfying his creative outlet.
During our journey in these companies, we looked at it not only as a way to get a paycheck, but also as a school of sorts. Absorbing every little aspect of what our job was at the time to see how we could implement it in our own business. The trick we learned early on is, try to get a job where you have an interest in. Be it, fashion, art, film, law, always surround yourself with like minded people. To this day, we still try to surround ourselves with people that have the same mindsets as we do to constantly keep us focused on our journey.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The number one obstacle we are currently facing is trying to get our business to the next level. We’re proud that we’ve grown consistently through the years. But there are times where you feel you’ve tried everything to grow, but seems to go nowhere. What we’ve learned is that we have to not get stuck in the same routine over and over again. Sometimes what works for a while, changes over time. We have to experiment with different things to see what works. The scary thing is trying something new and having the patience to see what works.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.clarkeandbarba.com
- Instagram: @clarkeandbarba
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarkeandbarba
- Twitter: @clarkeandbarba
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@clarkebarba8722
- Other: Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/CLARKEandBARBA Linktree: https://linktr.ee/clarkeandbarba Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clarkeandbarba
Image Credits
All photographs taken by: Clarke & Barba
