Interview with OXB – Our Exercise Brand Jewelry in Denver

If you were like me, you spent a ton of time drooling over jewelry during the past year. The online ads definitely figured out my style, and I was lucky to meet up with OXB (Our Exercise Brand), founded here in Denver. Those who know me well are probably chuckling because I am not a fitness person, but I like how their jewelry is pretty yet can handle being roughed up a bit – like, say, being worn while doing concert photography. Recently, I was able to get on a online chat with one of the co-founders, Laura Treganowan, and talk about the evolution of the brand, their new brick and mortar store in RiNo and plans for the future.

Note: I was provided jewelry to preview for this post.

OXB Interview with Laura Treganowan

Aimee:
Why don’t you just tell me a little bit about your company, and where you came from, and what you’re about?

Laura:
So, OXB was founded about two and a half years ago. I met my business partner, Maggie, in my cycling class. I used to be in spin instructor here in Denver. Maggie is a long time metalsmith, she’s been in metals for seven or eight years, and she has another jewelry company. I did a project for her because I also did freelance marketing and websites. Then we came together to make the idea of sweatproof jewelry, and started OXB. We really launched the business in late 2019.

Aimee:
Good timing.

Laura:
Great timing. [laughs] We primarily sold our jewelry in fitness studios. And then about six months later, everything shut down, and we kind of lost most of our business overnight. So the beginning of 2020, we really pivoted to e-commerce and hit the ground running that way. A year later, here we are. We just opened up our first store in RiNo that is kind of all things sweat proof. It has everything you can sweat in, not just jewelry.

Aimee:
Oh, I didn’t realize that you had more than jewelry in that store. That’s cool.

Laura:
We do! We partner with independent designers that we love. So, female-owned businesses, small businesses, like Year of Ours is one of our favorite companies out of LA. We carry Girlfriend Collective, which is all made out of recycled water bottles. And sweatproof jewelry, not only being great for sweating is…  we believe in quality over quantity, and if you buy quality pieces, they’ll last over a long time. Fashion in this world is notoriously wasteful. So if you buy more quality pieces, less of them, less of it will end up in the landfill. That’s part of the concept of the brand, and it’s filtered through the store.

Aimee:
Well, I also feel like your prices aren’t outrageously expensive either, so I think you have a nice balance there, where they’re quality pieces, but also reasonable.

Laura:
Right.

Aimee:
What is your plan now? Is the goal to build up the store?

Laura:
Yes. Our plan now is to build the store throughout the holidays. It’s been really fun to see the brand in real life since we built most of the business during COVID behind the computer screen, and our office was just a few people, truly the only people we saw last year.

Aimee:
Right.

Laura:
It’s been nice to see… I mean, COVID is definitely still here, as you know, but it’s been nice to see people’s faces in real life with their jewelry on. We do sweat events there. So it’s kind of just amazing-

Aimee:
Wait – What does that mean?

Laura:
We have a team of 70 ambassadors throughout the country. And about 20 of them are in Denver, so we invite them to do a fitness class at our store. We give everyone jewelry to sweat in, they sweat it out with one of our ambassadors, and go shopping afterwards.

Aimee:
That’s clever. I love that.

Laura:
Yeah, it’s really fun.

Aimee:
And I imagine… I know exactly where your location is. I don’t know how long you lived in Denver, but it’s very weird to me how that area has just exploded. So, I’m sure you’re getting foot traffic like crazy.

Laura:
Yeah. It is. It is crazy. Especially as the world starting to open up, last year we had an old little house farther on Larimer, just a thousand square feet, where we existed. And then we moved into this building in April, which has been awesome. I mean, it’s right next to Larimer Lounge, and people are everywhere.

Aimee:
I mean, that’s a perfect place for you in terms of that kind of thing, where, again… Even five years ago, I would’ve never guessed how much foot traffic that area gets.

Laura:
Totally. And now most of it, the streets are shut down every two blocks. It’s like party in the streets.

Aimee:
So, tell me a little bit about the lines that you have. I mean, I noticed there are different types of kinds of jewelry that you have. And there’s some that are more fine jewelry, and then more kind of daywear. What are your goals with that?

Laura:
So our original sweatproof line, what makes the jewelry sweatproof is the metal. We use gold filled metal and sterling silver, so nothing is plated. And plating is just a process that they’ll put the thin layer of gold over a base metal, and it rubs off over time. So we don’t do that. That’s why you can sweat in your jewelry because it just doesn’t rub off and you can’t see that base metal.

Aimee:
Got you. That makes sense.

Laura:
And that base metal is what has the reaction with your skin that turns you green or makes you allergic or something, so we just use a completely different metal. Our original sweatproof line is all made out of gold filled and sterling silver metal. We are actually working a line of all fine jewelry right now. So that’ll be all 10, and 14 karat gold, fine jewelry. It’s like elevating the sweatproof style a little bit. That’s what’s next.

Aimee:
That’s great. And one I saw that I thought it was really interesting was that you could come down and then get a permanent bracelet put on. Tell me about that.

Laura:
Yeah. There are kind of two different experiences you can have in the store. We call that one OXB Everlast, and it’s like the permanent welding bracelets. There’s no clasp, we weld it right onto your wrist. Those are all 14 karat gold bracelets. They’re nice and dainty, and they’re just meant to be worn all of the time. We also can do anklets.

Aimee:
Forever and ever?

Laura:
Forever and ever. It’s a commitment, you know?

Aimee:
I love it.

Laura:
Yeah. And then we also have, in the store, we also have a chain wall. On the website, we have a section that you can personalize anything from like a little bar to a disc to something bigger. We’re launching sweatproof name plates. In the physical store, you can pick your chain, you can pick your pendant, you can pick what you want stamped on it. And we’ll make it, because our production is all in-house. And then 20 minutes later, you can walk out with your necklace.

Aimee:
That’s really cool!

Laura:
That’s been really fun. And side note, a lot of our necklaces are named after female athletes. So we have Serena, we have Missy for Missy Franklin, who’s one of our ambassadors here.

Aimee:
Awesome. I love it. And obviously, people can order online, too. Do you ship just in United States or internationally?

Laura:
We ship internationally as well, mostly Australia and Canada are our other world markets. And then if you’re in Denver, you can choose local pickup.

Aimee:
One thing I wanted to mention, as a person who does not exercise regularly, but is definitely on the move – I love how your jewelry just feels comfortable to wear.

Laura:
That’s a great point. Sweatproof jewelry instantly pegs people into “workout sweat,” but sweat goes into a lot of things, not just physically doing a work out. There is a lot of sweat that goes into everything you do. The jewelry is just made to be worn every day, make your life easier because you’re on the go and moving, and this is all the sweat just from your everyday activity. It kind of elevates any outfit, and you don’t have to worry about it bothering you or anything.

Aimee:
I’ve gotten compliments, definitely on the hoop earrings, and then I love the heart necklace. I gave my son a bracelet. He’s an art student and super funky… I told him, “This bracelet should remind you how much I love you.” It’s the tiny heart one and he wears it every day now.

Laura:
I love that. And to that point, all of our styles are moving to gender neutrality. I mean, our chain links go down to 24 inches, so they don’t just fit a female neck. Jewelry is for everyone.

Many thanks to Laura for taking the time to chat! If you are in Denver, visit their store on Larimer Street, or you check out their jewelry online from anywhere.