Womily is not your typical purveyor of jewelry. It is a local small business owned and operated by a stay-at-home mom, which manages to be an innovator in the field while providing premium quality products to its customers.
Siobhan Winograd, the owner of Womily, graduated from Lafayette College in 1995 with a degree in engineering. After graduation, she started working at Tiffany & Co., where she ultimately became Director of Engineering and New Product Development. She stayed at Tiffany for 9 years, during which time she was only one of 2 women in management in the manufacturing division, had anywhere from 2 to 14 direct reports and saw the manufacturing division grow from 75 to 1500 employees. Her last day at Tiffany was March 11, 2004, the day her son was born. Mrs. Winograd has been a stay-at-home mom ever since.
After her daughter was born in 2006, Siobhan began to think about some of the professional parts of her life that she had left behind and how few opportunities there are in the workplace for women who want to continue to be the primary caregiver for their children. That led her to start Womily -- a combination of women, work and family.
The signature line started with an idea she had which she named "Touch." It is the translation of a fingerprint into a charm or cufflink. The name was meant to signify that the fingerprint represents someone who has "touched" your life.
Siobhan noted that while some of her products are whimsical ideas, unlike typical online jewelry sites, all of her products are premium quality. Mrs. Winograd said, "I always wanted to start my own business. While I really loved staying home with my kids, the longer I did so, I began missing parts of my old life."
She continued, "It then became a question of how can I stay at home with my children and do something that enables me to put the concept of motherhood and business together. Womily enables me to still be the primary caregiver but also to still have a sense of self."
The business has done very well in its first almost two years. Touch is available on line at Womily’s website, as well as through Neiman Marcus. Mrs. Winograd expects that it will also be available soon through a premium Canadian jewelry company. In addition, she was recently chosen as the subject of a profile on a local "online TV" website, Ridgewood TV.com
She concluded, "I feel very lucky. Womily provides the perfect balance where I still have family life while maintaining the sense of self that comes from my job."
For more information, please visit Womily.com
Photo above: Siobhan Winograd and her children.
Photo courtesy of Siobhan Winograd.