Daily Inspiration: Meet Gretchen Whitehead

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gretchen Whitehead.

Hi Gretchen, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I took my first jewelry class at the Toledo Museum of Art when I was young. Twenty-five years later, my work is sold inside it.
It started earlier than most people know. My dad had an orthodontic practice and I worked inside the lab, using small tools, polishing, learning the satisfaction of careful handwork. When I took that class at the museum, something clicked. I realized I could take those same instincts and make small pieces of art.
I went to RISD and earned my BFA in Jewelry and Light Metals in 1998. After graduation I moved to New York and took a job at a custom studio on the Upper East Side called Reinstein Ross, where we made everything by hand from raw materials, smelting our own ingots, rolling our own gold. That place was my real education.
I launched my first collection under my own name, Gretchen Julius Jewelry, and it was picked up by NYC boutiques, Barneys, and retailers in Japan. There was real press and real momentum, but I didn’t yet have the business experience to build on it. So I made a deliberate choice to go into the corporate world and learn. I spent years designing for large fashion companies including Liz Claiborne and Ralph Lauren. That work sharpened me.
Eventually my husband and I moved back to Ohio with our triplets. In December 2024 I launched Wild Made. The brand is carried at local boutiques and the Toledo Museum of Art, a full circle moment. The brand has also been covered nationally by Vogue, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. I run it entirely on my own, and mostly sell online at shopwildmade.com.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not remotely. Starting a brand from scratch as a solo founder while raising triplets is its own kind of endurance sport. There’s no team, no safety net, no one to hand things off to. I do everything: design, production, website, email, wholesale, social media.
The harder truth is that building something new takes longer than you think. I’ve had to stay patient with growth that doesn’t move as fast as I’d like, and trust that the right placements and the right customers will find their way to the work. So far, they have. That didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen without a lot of unglamorous work.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Wild Made is handcrafted artisan jewelry built around five animal talismans: the Elephant, Lion, Cheetah, Giraffe, and Zebra, with more to come. Each animal carries its own meaning, and each piece is meant to be worn as personal armor, a reminder of your instincts and where you’re going. It sits in a space I kept looking for myself and couldn’t find: original designs, small batch, made with real craft, at a price that doesn’t require a special occasion.
I design every piece myself. I’m a trained goldsmith with over twenty-five years of professional experience, and that shows up in the work.
What I’m most proud of is harder to measure. It’s the moment a customer tells me their story: why they chose the lion or the elephant, what they’re carrying, where they’re going. That’s what Wild Made is really for. Every piece is meant to help them reconnect with their own quiet wildness. When that lands, nothing else compares.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
I think there’s something important about building a business that is rooted in a place. Perrysburg and Toledo have been really good to Wild Made. The Toledo Museum of Art took a chance on carrying the collection early, and that kind of local support matters more than any algorithm.
If I could say one thing to someone thinking about starting something: don’t wait until the conditions are perfect. I started this brand in the middle of a messy, full life. That’s the only way it was ever going to happen.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shopwildmade.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shopwildmade
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shopwildmade
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gretchen-whitehead-913909