In college, Jennifer Kinnear studied Sports, Recreation and Leisure Management. At that time, few of her fellow students could have realized that some years later, Jennifer’s jewellery designs would be sold in 35 shops throughout the country, and that she would have her own flagship store in Temple
Jennifer was always creative and had a great interest in the fashion world. This interest brought her to work for a fashion clothing company after college and to attend evening courses in jewellery design in the National College of Art and Design. She loved these classes and while working in a variety of jobs, continued to experiment with jewellery design and manufacture, reading every book she could lay her hands on in this area.
Friends and family all raved about her designs and gave Jennifer the determination to make a career for herself as a jewellery designer. Jennifer’s drive was to create stunning jewellery: she became an entrepreneur by default. In 2002, Jennifer started selling in the Blackrock market and then moved to Cow’s Lane market in Temple Bar, where she found a ready interest and many customers for her jewellery. At the same time, she started to sell on a wholesale basis to a variety of shops and galleries.
During this initial start up phase she had the benefit of a mentor from the Dublin City Enterprise Board, which was just as well as she had to absorb a great deal of information in a relatively short time in order to set up the new business. As she says herself: The learning curve was so steep it was almost vertical! The commercial realities of managing a business meant that she would not be able to dedicate herself full time to designing, but would have to strike a balance between all the conflicting demands of a new business. One of the earliest lessons was that cash is king and that watching the cash flow is fundamental.
Jennifer now showcases her work in JK Retail Studio and Showrooms. Located in Temple Bar, the shop was opened in December 2002, and displays the three distinct ranges, Kink Bijoux, Vanilla and Jenny Wren that Jennifer designs and makes. She also works in situ, designing custom made, ‘one off’ pieces for the commission client, who wants to partake in the design process. Jennifer Kinnear comes from a line of entrepreneurs, her father and grandfather both had their own businesses. She believes that an entrepreneur, be they a man or a woman, needs tenacity and resilience – The ability to keep hold of the vision and when the knocks come along, as they invariably will, to bounce back and get straight back into it.
Jennifer’s family gave her great support and urged her to follow her dream. Without a network of support from friends and family, she believes that becoming an entrepreneur would not have been possible. Her partner, Simon, particularly fuelled her sense of self belief whenever it started to flag, and they brain stormed over many cups of coffee, as he was also setting up a new business, in a totally different area, at the same time as Jennifer was starting out. At the beginning, Enterprise Ireland was not convinced that the new business was a viable proposition. Looking back on this now, Jennifer laughs as she says this was not particularly surprising as they were faced with a young designer with plenty of creativity and drive but with no real design or commercial training.
Once Jennifer could, as she says, prove her worth the agency backed her with research and development grants. These allowed her to develop a further collection of her jewellery and underpinned her securing sales in the US market and agent in Japan. Jennifer meets buyers at Showcase Ireland, run by the Crafts Council of Ireland, which she says proved invaluable as a way of giving a platform to the jewellery and meeting major buyers from Ireland and from overseas. Asked if she would do it again, Jennifer hesitates and then says she would. The hesitation comes from a greater awareness of what is involved in the whole process of starting up a new business.
She would have loved to have known back in 2002 what she knows now: I have learnt so much along the way and have acquired new skills in many areas that I would never have acquired if I had not taken the plunge and become an entrepreneur. Jennifer is now looking to further grow sales of her jewellery in the US, get her sample collection out to Japan where she has just landed an agency deal and to break into the UK market. It seems a long way from a stall in the Blackrock Saturday market!
Source: GEM 2005 Report with permission from Paula FitzSimons