| Lisa: |
It’s a lot of fun for me every day to get on my Instagram account and see what’s happening out in the world. One of the people that I have followed for a little while now is actually in the studio with me today. This is Shana Ready. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Shana’s career and apparel design took her to New York City and Boston. However, it was the natural beauty of her home state that drew her back and inspired the creation of The Ropes. Shana is interested in jewelry that tells a story and that hold a memory. Shana spends her free time on the water with her husband and 2 children, lobstering on the family boat and exploring the endless islands and surprises of the coast.
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You have a great story.
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| Shana: |
Yeah.
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| Lisa: |
You also have a great Instagram account. I mean, you have a lot of people who wake up every morning and want to know what Shana Ready is doing.
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| Shana: |
Yeah. I know, it’s been interesting. I sort of have, I love giving people something to look forward to, even if it is just a thought of the day. My father in college always sent me these emails. It was the thought of the day. My friends would always laugh and chuckle, but it sort of made the outlook of the day a little brighter if you could sort of look at it that way. Social media has just been a really fun way for me to connect with people. I try to keep it very natural and not so staged because I do feel like there’s a lot of people that it’s very staged, but if I get a thought or think something is really cool then I try to like share it with people, “Hey, check this product out,” or, “Did you see how beautiful just the water is today.”
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| Lisa: |
Your account for people who are interested in following you is?
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| Shana: |
The Ropes Maine.
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| Lisa: |
The Ropes is because you actually have bracelets that you create that are made out of rope?
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| Shana: |
Rope, yeah.
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| Lisa: |
So tell me about that.
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| Shana: |
That all started one snowy winter. I was just sort of digging in the garage through my husband’s lobster gear, found some snap hooks and some great rope we had lying around and I started making bracelets for myself. I came up with several different ones, but I really kind of honed in on 2 that eventually became The Kennebunkport and The Portland.
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I started wearing them around. My friends just loved the bracelets and they’re like, “Oh, you’ve got to take these to local stores.” I was kind of like, “Oh, I don’t know.” It’s probably just one of those little things that I put together at home. I like to do sewing and knitting and all sorts of stuff, so I just figured it was something like that.
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But eventually my friend literally like held my hand and we went into Bliss and Angela Adams and all local stores and they began to really pick up on them and like them. It just seemed like the right time for an item like that, a rope bracelet that was fashionable. From there it just sort of took off to my surprise.
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| Lisa: |
But you’ve always liked working with bracelets?
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| Shana: |
Yes, yeah, definitely, since I’m a product of the 80s so I was making friendship bracelets and loved it. I had a wrist full of bracelets all the time making them for my friends. Now when I look back at things it’s a little ironic that I ended up being not only a jewelry designer but I do some sort of weaving with this bracelets wiping. It’s a specific type. Yeah, it is really interesting how life sort of turns like that.
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| Lisa: |
Your parents came from California with you when you I think you were 4 or 5. And they became the owners of the Old Fort Inn in Kennebunkport. This is a big life change for them.
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| Shana: |
Yes, it was huge. They ran in for I think it was 30 or 35, close to 35 years and they … My father always wanted his own business. The way the whole came about was my mom bumped into a pilot that … Sorry. My mother was a flight attendant and she bumped into a pilot and he was selling an inn in Kennebunkport, Maine. My dad wanted to run his own business. Our friends and family thought they were absolutely insane, like leaving these great jobs they had in San Francisco, California. They had stability, they had family, and they just up and were moving across the country to a whole new occupation that at the time inn keeping wasn’t so popular as it is now, so it was really risky.
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Luckily the risk worked out. But it was a great way for me to grow up. I met people from all over the world. That’s where I really began to enjoy and love the lifestyle in Maine. I really, I loved being on the water, being able to walk down to the beach. Just the sense of community in Maine, the people are really nice.
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| Lisa: |
It’s also been important for you to make that available to your children. You have a 2-year-old and a 10-year-old and you spend a lot of time with them, and Maine has been important to you and your family.
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| Shana: |
Yeah. I definitely because I studied fashion design at the Rhode Island School of Design I knew that I owed it to myself to sort of experience the cities, Boston, and New York, and see what fashion was all about. But I guess deep down I knew that wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted. I tried it for a little while and then I very consciously remember sitting in my cubicle in New York and looking around to all these young women working there. They were all really busy and loving their life in New York, but there was something missing for me there. New York is amazing from a cultural standpoint. There’s a lot that’s there, kind of in your face, and it can be really energizing and inspiring and fun and wonderful in that way.
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I guess it was at that point that I realized I preferred Maine and I preferred not a slower life but just a lifestyle where I think there’s so much creativity here in Maine but it’s not so in your face. You have to kind of seek it out. It’s like a hunt. It’s like you go down to the beach and you’re like what treasure am I going to find. Same thing when you go to these little flea markets and stuff, and, “Oh, what sort of piece of history am I going to find here and what is that going to inspire.” I really like that about Maine, is you never know what’s around the corner. Even just exploring the coastline. You go down a dirt road and you could find this beautiful beach that overlooks this island that you didn’t ever know was even there.
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| Lisa: |
That’s interesting because the way you’re describing the find is the way that you described to me earlier how you got into making The Ropes. It’s really so what is in front of me that I can weave into something else.
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| Shana: |
Yeah. I mean, I very much accidentally became a jewelry designer. I didn’t have a business plan. I didn’t seek out to have my own business even. I just was doing something out of my own joy and love and it just happened to turn into something that I can still do and love and work on every day. I do, I feel like I continue to work on it every day. There is no end all be all or right or wrong. You’re just continuing to explore and Maine allows me to do that.
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| Lisa: |
Did it help that you had parents who were doing their own thing, they had their own business, and now you have a husband who also is an entrepreneur and he has his own business? Did it help to be surrounded by other people who were able to show you that it was possible if you believed in yourself to move forward?
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| Shana: |
Yes, definitely. Although I would say my husband has a lobster business with his brother here in Maine, Ready Seafood. Then my parent’s Inn, the Old Fort Inn, those are very different than what I do. It was sort of inspiring to watch these people have their own business. Definitely you learn from things they’ve done. But my path was very different. I think that my experience in the cities in New York and in Boston really helped me focus on the fashion point of what I do. I don’t think that I just make a rope bracelet. I think I have created a style with the bracelet. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s so funny. It’s sort of a look that … I don’t know.
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| Lisa: |
Well, I think that’s a really good point because it’s not … I like reading your quotes on Instagram. but I also equally like seeing what you do with the bracelets and seeing where the bracelets appear. Because you will pair a bracelet with a pair of jeans, but you also pair it with something more tropical. Your bracelets actually have been picked up by media outlets around the country. So other people are agreeing with you that these bracelets really are kind of the, I don’t know, a focal point.
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| Shana: |
Yeah, I think it’s interesting. Somehow people can relate to them. It speaks to people. I think because the materials I use are so basic and people can just sort of relate. I think that there’s something really nice about the juxtaposition of putting this chunky rope bracelet on, but having a little black dress on and going to a cocktail party. It’s you’re dressed up but you’re not forgetting who you are, or you’re making a statement with this sort of chunky piece of jewelry that is nice I think.
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| Lisa: |
Well, it’s very Maine. I mean, it’s kind of the whole … I’ve been astounded by how popular bean boots and flannel shirts have become over the last few years. I mean, because I grew up wearing these. I am also a child of the 80s. That’s just what we wore, but it wasn’t because the rest of the world wore it. There’s something that’s very grounding about Maine and how we choose to live our lives. It doesn’t mean we can’t be fancy. We’re just this kind of interesting combination. We can wear a little black dress and our bean boots and our rope bracelet.
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| Shana: |
Yes. Yeah, it’s true. I think there’s something really nice and rugged about Maine and you have to sort of, I don’t know, I call it Mainerize. I always think, you know I look at all this fashion stuff and I’m like, “Well, would that work in Maine? I don’t know.” Definitely if I were still living in the city and going out to these fancy parties I could wear that, but it’s like you have to think about what I’m doing here in Maine and whether or not that’s going to work with your look.
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| Lisa: |
Yeah, but your bracelets also have some really great colors. I think I bought the first ropes bracelets that I bought were actually in Kennebunkport, in a little store there. 2 of them had bright fluorescent colors because I was giving them to my teenage daughter and my younger daughter at the time. I mean, you’ve been able to make really interesting variations on a theme.
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| Shana: |
Yeah. I love color. I get really inspired by color. I feel like it has endless possibilities. Any way you combine different color I think it’s really beautiful. I like to give the people that wear my bracelets like a reason to keep buying them. The only bracelet that I am like kind of committed to I feel like is my anniversary bracelet, my 5-year anniversary bracelet. I wanted a bracelet that would go with everything. That was why it was so neutral and it was just the 2 mixed metals and that worked. Then I feel like that will always be on the line, but then the other bracelets, the colors will change through the seasons, which I think keeps my customer entertained, but it also keeps me inspired and entertained, it keeps things interesting for me. I love putting collections together for different companies that I work with. It’s really fun.
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| Lisa: |
Tell me about some of these experiences that you’ve had with these companies, because you are your own self and your own entrepreneur and you’re very Maine, but you also have been collaborating with some really interesting other people.
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| Shana: |
Yeah. Let’s see. It’s funny. They just all have kind of … I guess I was very lucky from the get go. My first ever exposure was in elle.com and it was because a friend of mine was wearing my bracelet down in New York City and her friend worked at Elle and loved the bracelet. Then I got this notice that they were going to feature it on the website and I was like, “I don’t even have a website.” I had no website at the time. So I’m freaking out. I’m like, “Well, I got to have some place to direct people.” I literally called my friend up in New York. I’m like, “Can you like put a website up like this weekend? I need a place for people to go.” She did. I literally just took quick photos on my iPhone and sent them down to her because I was like, “Just put anything up. Anything is better than nothing.” She did that. Then it sort of just took off from there.
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I think that these different companies sort of came about. I guess I’ve been really lucky in my business where I’ve never had to like ask a company to work with me really. They’ve sort of come to me and I’ve just sort of let that happen organically naturally. It comes sometimes at a nice time in your life and sometimes not so nice. I mean, for instance J. Crew, I got their order and literally I was in the hospital having my daughter Reese and I’m sitting there getting this email and going, “Oh my god. What a great opportunity. But how am I going to make this work?” Here I am, I have this small business. I’m just having a child here. It was just a lot. I had to sort of make some sacrifices with her, with my daughter at first. I wouldn’t recommend it to everybody. But, yeah, it was interesting.
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I think going back a little bit to the social media aspect is things are not always as they seem. The J. Crew thing worked out. I had to plan everything. It was just me at the time working at The Ropes and I luckily had my intern that has now turned employee, was home from school for her Christmas break and we both just got through it all somehow. I don’t know. I mean I remember she was leaving me to go back to school and I just still had mountains of bracelets still to complete and she kind of felt guilty and I was like, “It’ll be okay.” At the time luckily my daughter was sleeping a lot because she was very little. So that was happening.
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Then a couple of months later I got the call from J. Crew and they wanted to feature me on their Discovered, which was a really exciting opportunity also. But again, I had never left my daughter who I just had. I was still nursing her. So there was a lot of stuff to sort of, obstacles to getting me down to New York to do this, this piece with them. But I did it. No, it wasn’t pretty. I was in the bathroom pumping milk. But that’s what I mean, like, it looks all glamorous, but behind the scenes there’s other stuff going on. But I got through it. That was a big accomplishment for me to do that big order for them. That was good.
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Then we just continue on with other companies we work with. Constantly we get asked to send samples out and stuff that can be used in photoshoots. Whether they’re used or not, I don’t know. Half the time they could be used, half the time they don’t. Yeah, it’s been an interesting journey.
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| Lisa: |
You raise an interesting point which is that it’s almost impossible to compartmentalize one’s life when trying to parent and also be an entrepreneur or even just have a job. Especially I think for women. We spoke with Erin Fleet who does her own designs, and Roxy Sugar, and she’d done fashion. Both of them described really having to weave their children into their lives. I know my son who’s 22, when I was in medical school he was on my lap nursing and it was midterms. He was born during midterms. I literally got up out of giving birth to him, studied, and went and took those tests.
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I think that that it kind of shows us our strength. It shows us that it is possible to make it through. But it also shows our children how strong they can be, because if they grow up with a mother who’s able to also pay attention to them but do things that she loves, then it causes them to think I think I can do this as well.
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| Shana: |
Definitely. Definitely. I mean my day to day is I would say I think I’m getting adult ADD because I’m just, I’m making bracelets and then I’m putting a lunch together, or I’m trying to figure out what soccer game my son needs to be at or Reese is hungry and I just got 2 orders that need to be done by the end of the week. I mean it’s just constant a juggling act and trying to fit everything in and make sure everybody is happy. Like I said, it’s not pretty, but at the end of the day if everybody is fed and bathed and in bed and homework’s done I’m happy.
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| Lisa: |
So what do you do for your free time? I know that you like to lobster on the family boat. That’s kind of a summertime thing. Well, I suppose it could be more than a summertime thing, probably your 2-year-old isn’t quite as excited about going on the lobster boat in January.
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| Shana: |
No, we don’t go out in the winter that often, no.
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| Lisa: |
So what do you do for the rest of your family time?
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| Shana: |
We love to travel. We can’t get away for very long, but we like those quick mini vacations that just revitalize you. Even if it’s for 2 or 3 days it’s just like, “Oh okay,” like, I can get through the winter or things like that. What else do I like to do? I like to read. Definitely I like to keep up with the fashion stuff, that looking through magazines and looking online, getting inspiration and ideas. I like to paddle board. I like to ski, but I haven’t been skiing much with my young daughter yet.
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But I do like to be outdoors and I try to get to the beach at least once a day, because again, I just feel like there’s always a treasure there to find and it’s fun. We were just out, maybe the day before yesterday we were out in our waders going through the water, taking my daughter and saying, “Oh look, there’s a sand dollar. Look, there’s a sea urchin.” It’s really fun to see what you can find in the shallow part of the water.
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| Lisa: |
So where would you like to see your business go in the next 5 years?
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| Shana: |
I would like to just honestly maintain my lifestyle. That’s what I feel like I’ve created something that I can still enjoy my family and work and do something that I love. I don’t see a ton of change. I just, I want to continue doing this as long as it makes me happy. I like that it’s small because I don’t think that bigger is necessarily better. I think bigger can bring on more headaches. I like that I still am a part of each and every piece that goes out of my workshop. That’s really important to me. I like seeing things from start to finish.
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| Lisa: |
Are you surprised that a woman from Maine who was once a girl from Maine could actually be successful as a jewelry designer, as someone in the fashion world?
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| Shana: |
Very surprised, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it still is unbelievable to me. I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for almost 6 years now. Had you told me when I first started, no way, I would’ve been like, “I don’t think this is going to last that long.” I mean, I still remember when I was just starting and both my parents and my husband were like, “All right, this is really cool, but when are you going to start getting like a real job?” I was kind of like, “Well, it’s either this or a real job because this is becoming a real job.”
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Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, it’s very surprising to me that I’m still doing this, but I’m so glad, I’m so thankful. I think it’s really fun, it’s great. I have so many of my friends, or I’ve had some friends that, “Don’t you get sick of making the bracelets or wearing them,” because somebody that’s in fashion I would say, you like a lot of change, like to change your outfit and stuff. But I feel like there’s a million different ways I can wear these bracelets. By throwing something else on with them or a different cuff. That all has personalities.
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I think also people’s hands, it has a lot of personality to it. You can look at people’s hands and see do they have nail polish or do they have no nail polish, like long or short nails, like how much jewelry do they have on. It says a lot about a person. It’s like a personality on a wrist. I feel like I could be wearing something really fancy, but if I have this rope bracelet on it says to someone that I’m down to earth.
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| Lisa: |
For young men and women who are considering going into fashion or jewelry design what suggestions would you have?
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| Shana: |
I would say that don’t compare your journey to anyone else, to go with your gut and what feels right to you because there is no right or wrong. I think that you’ll know as you go along what feels right and in the back of your mind always have your non-negotiables and stick to your guns with that stuff because only you know how you want your product to come across.
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| Lisa: |
I like it. Shana, how can people find out about The Ropes?
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| Shana: |
I have a website. It’s theropesmaine.com.
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| Lisa: |
And they can also go to Instagram and they can follow you there.
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| Shana: |
Yes.
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| Lisa: |
We’ve been speaking with Shana Ready who is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and also the creator of The Ropes, a very successful jewelry business hailing from the southern part of our state. I have personally at least 2 of your designs and I love them. I will keep wearing them. I’ll keep buying them for my now teenage daughters. Actually now she’s 20, so I guess she’s deserving maybe of another one entirely. But I appreciate the time that you took to come in and talk with us today. It’s interesting to hear somebody say when I was told to get a real job I said this is my real job and I just kept on going.
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| Shana: |
Yes.
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| Lisa: |
I appreciate that. Thank you for coming in.
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| Shana: |
Thank you.
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| Lisa: |
You’ve been listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 235, Coastal Creativity. Our guests have included Ben Davis and Shana Ready. For more information on our guests and extended interviews visit lovemaineradio.com. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes. For our preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Love Maine Radio Facebook page.
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Follow me on Twitter as Dr. Lisa and see my running travel, food, and wellness photos as Bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week.
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This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Coastal Creativity Show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
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| Speaker 1: |
Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of Maine Magazine, Berlin City Honda, Macpage, Boone’s Fish House & Oyster Room, and Apothecary by Design. Audio production and original music have been provided by Spencer Albee. Our editorial producer is Kelly Chase. Our assistant producer is Emily Davis. Our community development manager is Casey Lovejoy, and our executive producers are Kevin Thomas, Susan Grisanti, and Dr. Lisa Berlisle.
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