When a hobby became a passion, Cerese was soon traveling to gem shows and taking jewelry-making classes. Two years later, Cerese and her mom, Deborah, decided to follow her dream. She quit her job in corporate America to start her own jewelry design company. In 2007, Cerese D Jewelry was launched.
A mother-daughter ran business, Deborah and Cerese Dolman are equally integral to the livelihood of Cerese D Jewelry. While Cerese employs her creativity with her jewelry designs, Deborah brings many years of entrepreneurship and handles business development for the company.
“My mother was really the catalyst for the sales…she was selling in Michigan while I was in Georgia, making everything.”
Traveling across the country created customers and income for the duo. “We started to have home parties in Michigan as well as other types of events as we began to identify who and where our customers were.”
Almost 10 years after their launch, Cerese D Jewelry is a well-oiled machine with an international customer base of sophisticated women. Those women truly value the creativity and detail of “handmade in Atlanta” pieces of art and the work that goes into creating them. Cerese D boasts two different jewelry lines: a Couture jewelry and an Affinity line. The Couture line is a higher few of a kind designs. The Affinity line consists of branded jewelry for sororities like Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta and the well-known service organization The Links, Incorporated.
A proud 1995 graduate and advocate of Clark Atlanta University, HBCUs are extremely important to Cerese. “I am one of those people who is a total fanatic of my school. Clark Atlanta was the best decision I made.” The admiration for her university, helped to eventually spark the idea for a line catered to those who share in Dolman’s fanaticism.
A little less than a year ago, Cerese took the love she had for making jewelry and the love of HBCUs and launched her Cerese D HBCU line. “Our research told us there was an underserved market in our HBCU community for jewelry, and we just thought it was a natural fit.” Already certified with some of the Divine 9 organizations, and The Links Incorporated Cerese and Deborah realized that customers are interested in representing their organizations and want to wear that brand proudly.
As they launched the new HBCU jewelry line they took a direct long path. “We wanted to go about it the correct way. We wanted the Universities and Colleges to get their due royalties so we became licensed through all the appropriate channels.” The Jewelry line did their research and went through the arduous process of becoming licensed vendors for 9 institutions for which they design jewelry. The schools receive a percentage of each sale when their university bracelet is sold… Talk about giving back!
Testing the market with the now available schools like Clark Atlanta University, Howard University, and North Carolina A&T State University, Cerese D Jewelry will be adding more schools to the roster in the future.
“The feedback has been great. The school’s that we already have, people love it…Our challenge with it has been getting the word out there.”
Cerese D Jewelry prides itself on having all handmade pieces and excellent customer service. Staying new and innovative is how they stand out against their competitors.
Be sure to check out Cerese D’s next thing on their official website, www.ceresed.com and social media pages @ceresedjewelry
