By: Ginnie Lo
With 3,493 followers on Depop, Senior Jessica Mo sells one-of-a-kind and second-hand jewelry. She has designed and made over 40 jewelry pieces to express her interest in fashion. Mo wanted to sell her handmade jewelry and saw Depop as the perfect platform for its appeal to a younger audience and freedom. She began her business in her freshman year, she added.“
I get my inspiration [to make jewelry] from a lot of things around me,” Mo said. “For example, I was inspired by beautiful flowers that I see on my walks and so I made a pendant of dried flowers and resin. I wanted to preserve the flowers and make it into a fashion piece.”
Mo’s jewelry usually takes her five to thirty minutes to make. Most of her jewelry start out with a sketch and are sent to a manufacturer to be 3D printed in resin. After receiving the sample, she decides whether she likes it enough to sell, Mo continued.“
I wear most of my jewelry like on a daily basis,” Mo said. “Some of my pieces celebrate my [Chinese] culture and reflect my personality. My favorite item is my self-love necklace. It’s just a pendant and engraved on it is ‘I love myself’ in Chinese. I just thought that was kind of acute and funny way of showing who I am.”
Her other designs are made of vintage beads from eBay. The money she makes goes toward buying clothes and reinvesting into more jewelry. Mo hopes to continue her business in the future and make more high-quality designs from stainless steel and gold-filled jewelry, she added.“
You have to spend money to earn money,” Mo said. “I have to buy a lot of things for my business. It’s cheaper for each piece when you buy in bulk, but overall it’s more expensive. I have to save up to buy a lot of things and it takes more money to buy those high-quality materials.”
Mo also sells second-hand jewelry that catches her eye from thrift stores, eBay, or garage sales on her Depop platform. Although she has sold clothes before, Mo mainly sticks to selling jewelry because it is easier to handle and requires less effort and money, she added.“ I have a few buyers from school,” Mo said. “I feel like a lot of people who told me they like my jewelry told me that they’re shy and think it’s awkward to buy my jewelry, but I’m really open to people buying my pieces. It’s free delivery cost because I’ll deliver it to you at school.”
Mo makes a majority of her sales from advertising on Depop, @Jessica_Mo. She also has a website where she posts her jewelry-making process at jminmo.com/process, she continued.
“My website has more aesthetic,” Mo said. “It has a lot more of my own personal feel. I put more work into designing the page and showcasing my stuff. On Depop, you can’t have your designs. It’s not really selling, it’s just for display because my website links my social media and Depop.”
