Sierra Bailey, the woman behind the successful jewelry website Manic Trout is a real life Jill of all trades. This lady has attended school for architecture, has a head for business and marketing, a degree in 3D animation, paints in oil and watercolor and just so happens to make some of my favorite rings on the internet!
NAME: Sierra Bailey
WHERE ARE YOUR DIGS: Millbrook NY. Millbrook is a New England village where I can walk my dog at any hour and feel completely safe and know every ones name who lives there. I live and work in the apt of a huge old house where the local doctor used to live and work. My apt was actually the dr’s office and the doctor and family lived in the rest of the house. My studio was the large waiting room right when you walk in the door and I adore it! Its located in the center of the village and my land lady keeps magnificent gardens.
COMPANY NAME: Manic Trout
WEBSITE: www.manictrout.com
BLOG: manictrout.blogspot.com
CRAFT TOOL YOU CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT: Well, truthfully my computer, I would not be where I am right now if I was not at my computer for hours a day. For jewelry I could not function without a pair of bent nose pliers in each hand…I am like Edward Scissor Hands with those things!
FINISH THE SENTENCE: When I am not making jewelry I am walking my dog or hanging with family and friends….the usual. I also am an avid reader, I read every night in bed, but my guilty pleasure is reading non business books in the middle of the day.
I am a fan of your amazingly chunkaliscious wire wrapped rings, but every designer has their favorite thing to make. What is yours? What seems to be your top sellers?
Aww, thanks Jen! My top sellers are definitely the Button and Bling Rings and the Sweetest Thing Earrings. I would have to say that I enjoy making the rings the most of all the items I make often, but I love designing the big necklaces like Restless Sinner and All I Want necklaces and seeing them come together as my idea becomes real before my eyes!
Ps…My jewelry is named after songs, the button rings are named after super villainesses and the paintings are named after the book I was reading when I painted them…a fun fact from me to you.
You seem to really clean up in the press department. Manic Trout Jewelry has been featured in WWD, Instyle, Family Circle, Seventeen and tons more. Do you do all your own PR or do you hire out?
I was doing my own, the first magazine and newspapers and most of the blogs were results of my own sad pr attempt…basically the press came to me. I finally realized that I was lacking in the area of being able to pimp myself out well enough and that same week a publicist contacted me out the blue…so I figured I should look into it. The Daily News was my first publicist assisted press followed by WWD, and I knew then that I made the right decision.
I always say that editorial coverage for your product is better than any ad you could pay to take out. Do you have any pearls of wisdom for someone just starting out about getting their work into magazines?
I agree with you so much on that! Although when you hire pr help, you do in a way pay for editorial, so its not free, but it is still regarded differently when viewed in a magazine then an ad is. I do not pitch to magazines, so I am of no help in that area…but I do have to say that its very important to be organized when it comes to getting press, I often get emails from my publicist that an editor needs something immediately, be it a print worthy image to be emailed or a sample of a piece of jewelry (I have hundreds of samples out, most that I’ll never see again…you need to be ready to hand over that much product too!) to be over nighted. If I was not organized and top of things, I would miss out on many opportunities for editorial coverage.
I always thought of Manic Trout as a jewelry website, but once I started exploring further I discovered you are also an artist. Tell us a little bit about your art.
Well painting is my true passion, but I knew I needed a different career then just painting…I actually first went to architecture school, but realized that I had no desire to work in that field so I transferred to art school. I received my BFA in Computer Graphics, (yes 3d animation, which I have never done since school!) but I did minor in painting. After graduating I started Manic Trout and was focusing on painting, but at every show I did people flocked to the few pieces of jewelry I had with me, and admired but mainly ignored the paintings. I had to admit that if I wanted to have a creative career I had to pursue something that I might actually succeed at, so painting has remained something I love truly, madly, deeply, but that I do for me, not for work. I am very attached to my paintings…they are emotive and fueled by my energy and love of color and are a wonderful outlet for my excessive creativity, and hey I have tons of art on my walls!
I know that you are a blogger. If you could only subscribe to 5 blogs, what would they be?
Oh wow, that’s so mean!! Well there are a whole bunch of fellow creatives whos blogs I read daily…yours included! I love that we can share the experiences of running our own creative business each other, so those blogs are very dear to me, but I could never choose between them so…If I could only choose 5 I would have to go with:
Creature Comforts
Such a very pretty blog, I only found it recently and adore it!
Design Sponge
Grace has a wonderful blog, there is so much stuff there daily!
Fashionologie
A great source for a summary of all the fashion news each day
Foto Decadent
My biggest inspiration is photography and this site has fantastic fashion spreads
Modish
Modish was one of the first blogs I became hooked on and Jena is awesome!
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