Beth Parks: Welcome to the Sweet Tea and Strategy podcast, produced by Ackerman Marketing and PR. We speak with business and community leaders about challenges in their industry and marketing and communication strategies that have helped them drive their business, all over a glass of sweet tea. My name is Beth Parks and I'm vice president at Ackerman. Today, I'll be speaking with artist and designer Diana Warner.
Diana grew up in Tennessee with a passion for art. She graduated from the University of Tennessee with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in both painting and drawing. She launched Diana Warner Studio in Knoxville and upon much success, relocated her studio to Gramercy Park in Manhattan. She has jewelry in 700 stores worldwide and her designs are seen often on the red carpet and on hit TV series. Diana has retail locations in Knoxville and Nashville and her line has been expanded to include shoe lines, formal gowns, clothing, and now a Warner Home line with beautiful cabinetry and home products. So, Diana, welcome to Sweet Tea and Strategy. Thank you so much for being here.
Diana Warner: Thanks for having me.
Beth Parks: Of course. So, in light of the name of the podcast and with you being a Southerner, what's your take on sweet tea? Are you a fan?
Diana Warner: I order my tea—because my Southern accent is so deep—when I lived in New York, I had to order tea with no sugar because if I asked for unsweet tea, they couldn’t understand me. So I'm an unsweet tea girl, but—unless my brother makes it. If my brother makes it, it is delicious. He does the whole brewing the tea and the sugar—maybe he puts juice in it? Lots of fresh lemon. That’s my exception.
Beth Parks: Sounds delicious. What's your refreshing drink of choice?
Diana Warner: Currently water. Water's always a good one.
Beth Parks: Well, thanks again for being here. We want to dive into your journey and start with how you got started. I know you grew up doing crafts and that inspired you. You’re very artistic. I’d love to know how you got from doing crafts from going to the craft store into being able to have a studio.
Diana Warner: Um, yeah, that’s a hard path for me to even figure out how I got there. I actually always took art classes. I was the weird kid that was an athlete and an artist. It was a nice sort of balance. Always took a ton of art classes. I went to Farragut High School, had a fantastic art department there. Was very encouraged by them.
But then, you know, I was a little nervous as a Southern woman and, you know, going to art school seems so weird and like you’ll never be able to provide for yourself and it's scary. So I started out at UT in Public Relations and kept missing art. I had put together a business plan with my dad to purchase a piece of property down on campus, and inside that piece of property, I opened an art gallery to sell other people's art. I think I was still scared to be an artist, so I was tip-toeing into other people's and helping them get their art out.
And finally one day, I think I might have been at what’s now Bliss when we opened it—it was called Elation with Scott and Lisa—I think I was in the storeroom because it morphed into opening that business and just decided: I want to be making art and not selling it. So I applied to the art school at University of Tennessee. I had no idea it was really hard to get into and a really incredible school, and I did not get in. So I applied again the second semester. And the head of the department—the painting—I was going big. I was going for the hardest concentration. I wasn’t going to just, you know, go in for general art evidently. Michael Brocky, the second semester, told me that he let me in because I was brilliant, but I better learn how to paint. He had some cuss words mixed in with it, and that was sort of how my art career started as a terrified, shaking kid that was, you know, being told I better learn how to paint and I was only in because I was smart.
But I worked really hard and found out that art is really about vulnerability. And had some—whether you believe in angels or people or whatever you believe—walk into my life and hold me accountable or open my eyes to what the real story was I was trying to tell through art. You know, it was a lot of trial and error, a lot of kind of being scared and then stepping back and then stepping forward. But was able to graduate at a really high position in that class and with a major in studio painting and then a second concentration in drawing.
So, that led me to—okay, I'm almost to the end of your story—so that led me to my senior year. One of those angels was an artist named Charlotta Westergren. She’s still an amazing artist. She was doing the artist-in-residency program that I don’t think anyone in Knoxville understands exists at UT. It is unbelievable. So she was an artist-in-residence and she was doing a show at the Knoxville Museum of Art.
She knew that I was very business-savvy and asked me to basically manage the show. It was a huge show; we had 75,000 pyetts on and clovers growing and all this kind of crazy stuff. And so I was doing that and I showed up one day dressed and had a pair of pretty earrings on. And the director of the museum—I believe it was the director, it was Donna Dempster at the time—she didn’t even say anything to me, she grabbed my hand and walked me to the store, the Knoxville Museum of Art store, and introduced me to Susan who ran it and said, "Susan, this is Diana. We’re going to be selling her jewelry." And that was my very first client.
So for me, I was making—and I still do occasionally—but I was making these massive paintings, I was making art that took forever, and my therapy or my quick art was jewelry. And I had made that as a kid and I kept making it. So much so that Michael Brocky, who’s passed away but was the head of the department, came in my art studio and kicked—like kicked, like a soccer ball—my bead box into my studio and spilled it everywhere and told me to put the jewelry away until I effing graduate. Because he thought it was a distraction. So as a smart-ass, I started making giant paintings of jewelry. And my thesis he loved because he was like, "She’s such a smart-ass, I love it." But that was my little thing, and that’s really my little therapy became my career.
And I think having the fine arts training made me better at making jewelry. I think what people forget or don’t realize about fine arts training is that it's a ton of problem-solving. So that fine arts stuff affects everything you do going forward.
Beth Parks: So it just took that one person to notice your earrings for you to get that foot in the door.
Diana Warner: Yeah, isn’t that wild? And then Obbligato picked up the jewelry after that, and then all these stores around the Southeast. And it was really maybe a year or less before I moved to New York City and managed to run into, at a charity event I was helping with, the crowd from Gossip Girl and they were getting ready to film and wanted to know if I wanted to be involved. And I told them I didn’t watch TV, I only watched SEC football. And they’re like, "Well, you’ll like this show." And I was like, "Okay, whatever." I’ve seen every episode like a hundred times, so I liked it. But got to know them and became a staple with that show, which was really cool to be a part of.
Beth Parks: So when you had your studio and it grew in Knoxville, that must have been a huge leap of faith to just pick it up and move it to New York. What were you thinking at the time? What was happening and why did you make those decisions?
Diana Warner: Well, I have a really smart little brother who is an architect that graduated his undergrad from Tennessee. And I was up there a ton for what’s called a desk side. So you take your whatever you made or whatever your product is and you go sit with an editor at their desk and you walk them through it. And I was up there for a lot of those. And, you know, I would stay in hotels, spend a lot of money on hotels. And he got a job in New York City as an architect. And so my brother, being the genius that he is, was like, "Well, why are you spending so much money on hotels? You could just be, you know, sharing some place with me." Smart guy, because then he got a bigger place.
And so we went that route. I was like, "You’re right! Oh my gosh, I could help my brother have a better place." And he was like, "You really need to be in New York City." And it was kind of a slow thing. And my best friend Rachel Nickel—now Field—from Knoxville growing up, we met when we were in this grade that I don’t think exists anymore called transition... and so we’ve been friends ever since. And she was beauty editor at a magazine up there and she was like, "You need to move up here, you need to move up here." So I had a support system. It wasn’t just pack up and go. I had already had business established there and had worked really hard to do that, and I had encouraging family.
Beth Parks: So what is it specifically about your jewelry that you think gets noticed the most?
Diana Warner: Um, it’s maybe very wearable but also kind of stands out. So it's a statement but also wearable. A lot of it has natural metal colors or natural-looking metal, but then it's juxtaposed with like something really sparkly. So I think it looks different. And it might not be that pretty, it just became popular, you know? But I think it's pretty. And I think a lot of people do. I spend time sourcing nice material. I like making things function. I'm a really big into: you need to be able to wear this every day or with all these different outfits or it needs to change and morph. So I think it just fits with your life.
Beth Parks: So at some point in time you decided to, you know, add a shoe line or expand your business. Was your artistic creativity going in different directions or why did you choose what you chose?
Diana Warner: Um, it was just a natural fit. You know, like jewelry and handbags became shoes, and shoes became some clothing. Dabbled in all of that. The shoes were really sort of the same idea as the jewelry; the shoes are pretty but they’re comfortable and healthy. And that’s the whole thing with the jewelry is that it's hypoallergenic, it's made from nice material but it's affordable. And the shoes were sort of a similar idea of that I want it to function. And the little tagline was: "Walk a mile in these shoes." And I’ve walked all over Manhattan, multiple miles in those shoes.
Beth Parks: So in New York, you have this great studio, you’re selling jewelry to stores and boutiques, and you mentioned Gossip Girl. But then you also developed relationships in the country music—do you have any tips for anyone that’s looking to get endorsements or work with celebrities to get those relationships?
Diana Warner: Um, yes, and I would say keep asking. And then be open to like weird stuff. Or not weird, but things that you wouldn’t think of. You know, Gossip Girl, when it came across me, I was like, "I don’t even know how to turn my TV on, but sure, whatever." And had no idea it’d be huge for my company.
And then I was approached by a company called Red Light Management, and they are talent management. And at the time, they only managed musicians. And there was a young manager there that was like, "I approached your boss and said: I like this girl, I buy her jewelry, I’ve met her, I think we can make some money with her." And from that, I ended up doing a partnership with Styx, the band like that I love from the '80s. And they still play, and they’re awesome. And Tommy Shaw is a dream, he and his wife Jeanie are amazing people. And then I did a partnership with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill for their Soul2Soul tour.
The whole idea behind the partnerships was making merchandise that people would buy—like making a collection in their style. So instead of you going buy ugly concert shirts... instead of that being your only option, you could buy something that Faith or Tim might actually wear or Tommy or the boys might actually wear. Anytime you do something new, you’re going to get backlash, and Lord knows I got it from the Styx fans. But then they love me; I mean, I still get fan mail. And then with Tim and Faith, it was really well-received.
But just be open to stuff that feels out of the box. But I do think like desk sides are important—I don’t know what they’re called these days—but just email, email, email. There’s this brilliant girl that was my friend growing up that came to work with me in Knoxville named Laura Belsley that studied public relations and she just was relentless and got my little face in Marie Claire magazine and overnight we sold thousands and thousands of necklaces. Just be relentless. If you’ve got an idea, but also be open. I always tell people that the only way to be successful in business is to be Madonna. And how is she successful? Because she’s constantly morphing and changing and she’s constantly relevant.
Beth Parks: I know looking back on the past year, 2020 was a real shit-show. Different kind of year for everybody. Did you have any learnings or takeaways?
Diana Warner: Tons. Um, well, one, we never shut our business down and we got a citation, which I have framed. It’s my badge of honor. And I made a decision early on—I was scared to death like everyone else... but I made a decision that I would not lose employees and I would not sacrifice the hours that they needed to pay their bills. I knew that I'd probably empty my savings to get my company open and just—it was one of those gut punches. And we just decided to put our head down and to just go forward and we never closed.
I do think that if you have the energy, that down times like in the economy is when you will grow the most as a person and when your business can grow the most. If you have the energy and you are stubborn enough to put your forever eyes on and look 500 yards away. Because you do, you have to look a year down the road, you have to look two, you have to look three. And you’ve got to keep looking when you get distracted, you’ve got to refocus.
Beth Parks: I always try to plan, you know, 10 years out but then you have to be able to morph in the moment. So with your studio in New York, your store in Nashville, your store in Knoxville, you also have a new adventure with Warner Home that we would love to hear about where you’re a design partner and have all these lovely home products. How did that come about? Was this pre-COVID?
Diana Warner: It was pre-COVID. It’s kind of been bubbling up for my entire life. I would always just help people or clients that I liked do design work and not really ever charge for it. And I was really good at it, like I was just good at decorating. I haven’t been to design school, I can’t be called an interior designer, but I was good at decorating. And what I really, really love is helping people do their job well.
So what I decided to do was to open a company that could help designers—like actual interior designers—do their job really fantastically. Or if a client didn’t have an interior designer, we could hook them up with one or we could act as their decorator. And it’s been fantastic. We have a beautiful line of custom inset cabinetry. We also have a line that’s like crazy affordable. Like if you wanted to flip a house or if you wanted to put something in a house that you’re like: look, this is the price point that I'm going to top out at, we are very upfront with people. The fact that our overhead is so small, our quality and our value—what you’re getting—is just fantastic.
It’s all word of mouth. We do have intentions of advertising and working up to that, but right now we haven’t. And so the cabinets are fantastic. We sell at wholesale tile, wallpaper. We are the new Farrow & Ball—which is a company out of the UK—distributor for East Tennessee. Which means that we can create designer accounts for, you know, a public person that walks in... but we can also create designer accounts and architect, builder accounts for people who want to use a nicer healthy product. Farrow & Ball is phenomenal. It’s healthy, which I think is so important. And there’s washable paint, which is great because you know kids are licking walls and writing on them.
Beth Parks: So, I know looking back on your journey how you were afraid, you know, being an artist does not make a lot of money, especially initially. What is your advice for anyone who’s just starting out that has a budding idea that maybe seems out of the box or out of the ordinary?
Diana Warner: Yeah, I mean when I changed my major, I was point-blank told I would make more money dead than alive. And they were really, really upset about it. But as a pretty logical person, I was like, well, I could always teach. But I would say one, if you don’t have haters, you’re not doing your job and you’re not doing something new. So haters is okay.
But you can’t run on empty. You could run straight in, head in, throw everything you have into this dream... but guess what, the chances of you making it are really, really slim. And if you do, you might burn out. So my advice would be work really, really, really hard at your side gig and have some sort of stream of income to sustain you. But work really hard and be okay with sacrificing things like relationships or friendships or social time. If you don’t make sacrifices in your 20s, you’re not going to have what you want in your 30s. Having it be sort of a side gig while I was making income as a young person enabled me to buy more into my side gig. And then my side gig became my gig. Think logically but dream big.
Beth Parks: That’s great words of advice. So, thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. This was an amazing conversation.
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