Episode Overview

Title: Jewelry Designer Jennifer Fisher on 20 Years of Her Brand, Current Best Sellers, and Expanding Her Empire
Host: Bobby Schuessler, Who What Wear
Guest: Jennifer Fisher
Release Date: February 4, 2026

This episode celebrates two decades of Jennifer Fisher’s eponymous jewelry brand, tracing her path from stylist to entrepreneurial success. Known as the “Queen of Hoops,” Fisher shares her brand's evolution, current best sellers, the behind-the-scenes of her cult-favorite pieces, and her latest ventures in food and lifestyle via her new platform, Maiden. The conversation is candid, lively, and full of industry insights—balancing tales of celebrity collaborations, personal challenges, and the strategic business moves that have defined Fisher’s approach to fashion, wellness, and beyond.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Beginnings and Career Pivot (01:29 – 05:38)

• Fashion Inspiration: Fisher grew up in Santa Barbara, with an early obsession for fashion—customizing vintage clothes and yearning for Vogue subscriptions.
• Styling Roots: She initially worked in publishing but quickly realized she wanted to be on the creative side. Moved into commercial wardrobe styling, working on sets with various teams and clients for 10 years.
• Personal Adversity: Diagnosed with a desmoid tumor, endured chemotherapy, and struggled with infertility before the birth of her son, Shane.
• Launching the Brand: Her first jewelry piece—a custom dog tag necklace for her son—was born from a desire to create a stylish, meaningful keepsake she couldn’t find elsewhere.

Notable Quote
“I wanted, like, a heavy gold chain. And I wanted the dog tag to say Shane, because I had gone through so much to try to have him…So I knocked on doors on 47th Street…and I found someone to make me this dog tag that said Shane. I wore it on set, and literally, like, it was this instant conversation piece.”
—Jennifer Fisher (04:14)

2. Building the Business: From Custom Orders to Celebrity Craze (05:39 – 09:18)

• Early orders by celebrities (Uma Thurman, Ashley Simpson, Nicole Kidman) made her a “celebrity mom jeweler.”
• Realized the potential as a real business after her husband noticed the volume of invoices: launched a direct-to-consumer, customizable fine jewelry site before that was mainstream.
• Used guerrilla marketing: provided stylists with jewelry kits, focusing on relationships over big budgets.
• Authentic celebrity moments gained traction: “JLo going to the gym in her 2-inch thread hoops, or Hailey Bieber and her Hailey Micro Huggies.”—Jennifer Fisher (07:58)
• Expansion into retail via Barney’s, inclusion in top fashion editorials, and as a finalist for the Vogue CFDA Fashion Fund.

3. The Rise of the Hoop Earring and Brand Evolution (08:37 – 11:20)

• Inspired by Adoah Aboah and Sade, invested in creating the perfect, wearable hoop.
• Naming Moment: The “Samira Hoop” was named for Samira Nasr (Harper’s Bazaar), who championed Fisher’s thin hoop design.
• Hoops became a signature, compared to “denim”—a basic that everyone needs in variety.

Notable Quote
“Hoop earrings…are sort of like denim. You need multiple pairs of these. And so I was like, hold on. If I can do this, I’m going to corner the market on this and make sure that I have every shape, style, and color…”
—Jennifer Fisher (09:19)

• Current best sellers range from hoops to trend-driven, seasonal pieces and successful two-tone collections.

4. Retail Locations and Real Estate Choices (11:22 – 12:44)

• Retail Strategy: Focused on neighborhood placements with natural foot traffic—NYC Madison Ave & LA’s North Beverly, strategically near lifestyle destinations (e.g., across from Erewhon or Butterfield).
• Goal is to make the store a convenient stop for daily errands and gifting.

5. The Expansion: Jewelry to Food & Lifestyle (12:44 – 17:58)

• Venturing into Food: Driven by her Hashimoto’s diagnosis, Fisher created her own cult-favorite gourmet salts when she couldn’t find seasoning she liked.
• Instagram food postings led to curiosity from her fashion audience, launching her into the culinary space.
• “My husband Kevin was like, things are tasting really good. What are you seasoning with? And I was like, it’s that salt that I made on the side of the stove.” (13:11)
• Salt line grew through viral gifting and press, despite business challenges in packaged foods.
• Cookbooks and food content blossomed out of demand for her easy, allergen-aware recipes, especially during the pandemic.

6. Maiden: The Lifestyle Platform (18:39 – 19:34)

• Birth of Maiden: Evolved from Jennifer Fisher Kitchen—now a free, content-rich website with recipes, how-to guides, fashion and beauty tutorials, and a newsletter.
• Features include “Jen with Friends,” interviews with tastemakers, and forthcoming video content on YouTube.
• Memorable Moment: “Maiden is the place where you can go where it has all of my food content…then it’s also my fashion, sort of like how to put on my fake eyelashes…We’re gonna do a hair tutorial soon.” (18:58)

7. Personal Fashion Philosophy & Picks (20:09 – 22:14)

• Highlights favorite finds: cinched jacket tops, denim, Saint Laurent boots, and new “Peggy” handbags (“She’s good.”).
• Inspiration from DJ Peggy Gou for handbag style.
• Footwear: Favors boots and platforms over sandals or heels, despite past foot surgeries!
• Sunglasses: Split between Saint Laurent’s rounded “Audrey Hepburn” styles and classic oversized aviators—often worn indoors.

8. Looking Forward: What’s Next (22:14 – 23:54)

• Men’s Launch: A men’s jewelry line is on the way, launch date TBD (“The struggles of getting larger,” Fisher laughs.)
• Wellness Collab: Teaming up with wellness author Gabrielle Bernstein for meaning-driven jewelry pieces etched with affirmations.
• New collaborations, more soft goods (building on beanie success), and beautifully designed jewelry storage and tableware coming soon.

Notable Quote “Given the success of the iconic beanie, we are now working on some other soft goods which is very exciting, as well as some jewelry storage things.”
—Jennifer Fisher (23:23)

Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I was the girl…starved for fashion. Like, I would have my parents drive me down to Melrose Avenue so I could buy the pointy, witchy boots from the punk stores.”
  (01:29, Jennifer Fisher)

• “Kevin walked into the bedroom, there were like invoices all over the bed. And he’s like, Jen, this is a business, right?”
  (05:39, Jennifer Fisher)

• “JLo going to the gym in her 2-inch thread hoops…Hailey Bieber and her Micro Huggies…seeing those images is very powerful for the brand.”
  (07:57, Jennifer Fisher)

• “Hoop earrings…are sort of like denim. You need multiple pairs. I’m going to corner the market…to make sure there’s something for everybody.”
  (09:19, Jennifer Fisher)

• “Everything I do is really simple. Nothing is hard. In the book, I give everyone an option: You can do it the old way, or you can do it the new way. You choose.”
  (17:26, Jennifer Fisher)

• “I try to be really mindful because I had a lot of people that were my followers when I started eating this way, got really pissed off because they’re like, we miss the banana bread. We miss the cheesy bakes.”
  (17:44, Jennifer Fisher)

• “Maiden is the place where you can go where it has all of my food content…then it’s also my fashion, sort of like how to put on my fake eyelashes…We’re gonna do a hair tutorial soon.”
  (18:58, Jennifer Fisher)

• “I’m always buying Saint Laurent boots…But I wear big shoes a lot. I wear boots more than I wear heels even out at night…I’ve collected denim my entire life.”
  (20:58, Jennifer Fisher)

• “We have a chic gold salt spoon coming, a salt cellar—things that were very successful when I did the CB2 collab…it made sense for me to redesign those.”
  (23:35, Jennifer Fisher)

Episode Structure & Timestamps

• [01:29 – 05:38] – Early fashion obsession, career in styling, health struggles, first jewelry creations
• [05:39 – 09:18] – Celebrity attention, turning custom jewelry into a business, breakthrough moments
• [08:37 – 11:20] – From dog tags to hoops, cover features, the “Queen of Hoops” branding
• [11:22 – 12:44] – Retail expansion, strategic store locations
• [12:44 – 17:58] – Food pivots, salt business, Instagram cooking, cookbooks
• [18:39 – 19:34] – Maiden: fashion, food and lifestyle website/community
• [20:09 – 22:14] – Jennifer’s favorite fashion pieces and current buys
• [22:14 – 23:54] – Upcoming launches: men’s jewelry, Gabby Bernstein collab, soft goods, jewelry storage
• [23:56 – 24:12] – Close and wrap

Final Notes

This episode is a rich window into Jennifer Fisher’s multi-faceted creativity, grit, and business savvy—from the inception of her jewelry brand, to buzzy social moments, to her organic expansion into lifestyle and wellness. Through candid recollections and practical advice, Fisher inspires listeners to follow their instincts, meet unmet needs, and stay nimble—whether in fashion, food, or entrepreneurship.