Meet Nancy Jamar

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nancy Jamar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nancy, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.
My business was flagging during the recession and I pulled back on spending, thinking that was the smart thing to do. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The store became static, stale, and essentially, I had stopped giving people a reason to come in. Even though customers weren’t spending very much, they still depended on coming in and seeing something new, something to inspire them. So even though the budget wasn’t there, I found bits of money here and there to keep something fresh in front of customers, even if some of it came from my own collections.

Gradually, I found my footing again, and started trusting my instincts. The economy righted itself, the pendulum swung back again, and I determined never to stop investing in my business again. Over the years, whenever I have felt like easing off or pulling back, I take that as a signal to keep pushing forward. When I feel strongly about an item, I usually dig deep and try and capture as much as possible. The nature of my business makes that make sense, as I deal in vintage and unusual items for people to work with. That acquisitive drive has established the store as a resource for artists, designers and makers. I am always sourcing, always hunting.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Though I originally started out selling vintage millinery, clothing and jewelry, the business started to veer into the supply side of things, driven in part by my own desire to make things. Having been a graphic designer for years, the transition to digital left me wanting more hands on creating, and I was happy to pair that with my love of vintage.

The best thing about my work is working with creative people. The products we carry range from textiles to ephemera, findings and beads to buttons and trims, feathers and flowers. This brings in a wide variety of artists and creatives, and it always amazes me that in the course of a day I can have two or three people come in and look at the same item and have completely different visions of what it might be. The store has gotten a decent amount of ink over the years, and my mother asked me once, “What do you most like to hear at the store?” meaning, what comments about the shop. But I told her my favorite thing was to “hear the wheels turning.” Almost always, when people come through the door, they are soon immersed in the creative process.

We like to say that when you work with vintage, you ‘start with a story.’ Whatever you create will be grounded in its history, and you take it the rest of the way. You are sure to end up with something unique if you start with that.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I ended up using a lot of the skills developed in my former work life: graphic design helped me in packaging and branding my products, and my skills as a copywriter and in product development stood me in good stead when it came to naming my own products and designs.

Above all, I found that my ability to retain information about the products I sold was key. If we are to ‘start with a story,’ I had to be able to relate that story to my customers, so they in turn could make it part of their end product. There’s a certain amount of education and commitment that goes along with using vintage components, and I often remember a scene from a well known film where a customer asks, “Is that why it costs so much?” and the shopkeeper replies, “No, that’s why it’s worth so much.”

There is no single quality more important than communication in retail…to communicate why your products are special, and why your customers are as well. Their value adds to your value.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
“Light From Many Lamps” was a well worn book I picked up decades ago. It is a compilation of quotations and essays that relate to different passages in life, including work and career. My favorite is from Elbert Hubbard, and I carried a copy of it in my wallet for years:

“Genius is really only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it—so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success. As the tide goes clear out, so it comes clear in. In business, sometimes prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.”

Tough love from Elbert, but it got me through many a rough patch. And it has rung true for me many times, most recently when the pandemic hit and I wondered if I should shutter the store. Instead, I shuffled the deck a little bit, taking down a wholesale web site that was aging out, and instead, migrated everything over to Etsy. Since I was going to be a one woman show going forward, it made sense to pare away one of the three channels for the business, and let Etsy handle things like sales tax, SEO and so on. Best move I could have made, and I not only survived, but thrived and grew the business during that time.

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Image Credits
All photos courtesy of Gilding the Lily

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