Accessory to Growth
Jewelry and accessory store chain sees great growth potential with the right support.
Susan Fishman

Laila Rowe started out as “the working women’s jewelry store” but has recently become much more of “the working women’s accessory store,” offering jewelry, hair accessories and handbags.

For the past 4 years, Laila Rowe has had a good run offering the average American woman a wide selection of jewelry and accessories at an affordable price. Laila Rowe owners Alex Field and Judith Schwartz have 37 years of combined experience in the accessory business. Field is a jewelry designer who comes from a family who owned accessory companies in her native Australia. She dabbled in fun, inexpensive costume jewelry, mainly in the wholesale market, while Schwartz, a jewelry collector and designer with 23 years’ experience in the jewelry business, ran her own store for 10 years with a focus on higher-end jewelry. In 2003, the two friends opened an accessory store in Manhattan and named it Laila Rowe.

The idea for the store came right after September 11, 2001, when the women thought that people needed things “cheap and cheerful.”

“There were a lot of vacant stores in Manhattan to be had,” notes Schwartz. “We were able to arrange some temporary deals that could go permanent because people were kind of desperate to rent stores.”

Today, Laila Rowe has 24 retail stores in the United States, including 13 stores in New York City and several in the Tri-State area.

So they picked up a few Manhattan stores in the first year and soon opened in several centers across the Baltimore area. They hired a district manager to run the region and, eventually, did the same thing in Connecticut and New Jersey.

“We felt like the women outside of Manhattan were probably moving out, but still working in Manhattan, so we might catch them there.”

Today, Laila Rowe has 24 retail stores in the United States. In addition to some 13 New York City store locations, the company has several Tri-State area stores, including locations in Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, New Jersey; Palisades Center in West Nyack, New York; Danbury Mall in Danbury, Connecticut; and Evergreen Walk in South Windsor, Connecticut. Other stores include Westfield Annapolis in Annapolis, Maryland; Towson Town Center in Towson, Maryland; Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia, and Gallery at Harborplace in Baltimore. The company also has one international location in Sydney, Australia.

Laila Rowe started out as “the working women’s jewelry store” but has recently become much more of “the working women’s accessory store,” offering jewelry, hair accessories and handbags. The main objectives for the collections are innovative design, quality materials, versatility and excellent price points.

Laila Rowe first opened in 2003 in Manhattan.

“We’re trying to get away from jewelry a bit because there is definitely way too much saturation in the costume jewelry market now,” notes Schwartz. “In the past 2 years there has been a definite slow-down in costume jewelry sales. So we changed our formula a little; it’s something we’re constantly tweaking. That’s going to be one of the most challenging parts — constantly coming up with new little things that go with our theme.”

The store decor is simple with a stark, lime green and white background that’s designed to really showcase the product. A good size for a Laila Rowe store is 800 to 1,000 square feet. The company essentially has no competitors in its exact product offering, says Schwartz.

“The other companies that are doing what we’re doing are international, and some have already had to close their doors in the U.S.  It’s really a fickle market that we tackle; I think we’ve hit a very unusual niche.”

Schwartz says the sky is the limit as far as growing Laila Rowe stores, but doesn’t want to pursue any more growth without the proper money behind it.

“So far, we’ve done everything off of our own profitability and pumping our own personal money into the company when things tightened up.”

As far as production and distribution, the company has the capacity to open many new stores. Laila Rowe already supplies more than 4,000 mom-and-pop stores and roughly 12 major retailers with thousands of stores, so the company is used to the production/shipping regimen. When it is time to grow, Laila Rowe will be looking for new types of locations, as malls can be expensive for the company due to the cost of build-out, says Schwartz.

“I would be totally interested in opening in more college towns because you have a captive audience and the property is inexpensive. We’re in some minor centers, which are struggling but trying to make it work. They are amazingly beautiful centers and well situated — people just need to hear about them. So we’re in it for the long run.”


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