We all dream of following our "bliss”. Perhaps it’s preordained. How many of us take a giant leap, leave corporate America at the height of our career and start our own company. That is exactly what Cathy Gins, the Designer and Founder of Aromawear has done.

 

The former Vice President of Merchandising, New Business Development at The Monet Group and International Design Director – Fragrance, Cosmetics, Personal Care, and Gifts believes it was her destiny, "According to a medium from Australia who I met at a dinner party in Paris, I was a jeweler to the Royal Russian court in one of my past lives. If I believe that, it would go a long way to explain why at the age of 5, when all of my friends were playing with Barbie dolls, all I wanted to play with was the glorious emerald ring that belonged to my great grandmother Emilia."

 

 

Cathy, is a leader in the seemingly conflicting worlds of fashion and aromatherapy; she is the recipient of the Fashion Group International 2009 Rising Star Award in the Beauty Entrepreneur category for Jewelry and Accessories and a member of the Natural Perfumers Guild) integrates irreconcilable elements: aesthetic pleasure, functionality, and self-expression.

Yet, this fashionable entrepreneur’s “Aha!” moment came out of her study of healing. “Oh, yes! I could put fragrance into jewelry and people would not only have something to serve them but also have something that is a pleasure to use.” Aromawear was born. Each piece of Cathy’s jewelry, whether a necklace, bracelet, or key chain, consists of a small locket that holds a wool wick saturated with the wearer’s fragrance of choice, whether an aromatic oil or a perfume. Just saturate the wick, open the locket, insert, close, and enjoy your fragrance for hours. Scents diffuse through small openings.

 

Aromawear offers its wearer the unique gift of scented memories. If perfume is the key to memory, these lockets are its secret lavaliere.  If your high school sweetheart wore Old Spice, if your mother wore Shalimar, one of the wool wicks can be drenched with the scent and placed in a locket.

 

 

Now the treasure of their presence will accompany you throughout the day. In this way, Aromawear fulfills a wish expressed by the unnamed heroine of Daphne du Maurier’s novel, Rebecca: "If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent.  And it never faded, and it never got stale.  And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again." 

 

The hallmarks of Aromawear are its versatility, adaptability, and the choice it offers to users. Wick cases can be purchased for storing different scents. These fit in a purse or pocket, so that changing scents is a simple matter, and the wearer can easily accommodate changing moods, alternate fragrances worn in the morning, afternoon, or evening, and control length of time worn. The design of Cathy’s jewelry makes each pieces enormously flexible.

 

“Simple elegance” is the phrase she uses to describe her products. Because of this simplicity, the pieces will never go out of style, are visually serene, and make a fashion statement. The lockets detach from their chains and can be reattached to a bracelet or necklace of choice. If you prefer modern, vintage, cloisonné, or southwestern chains, these elegant lockets will adapt gracefully.

 

How did Cathy arrive at the idea for Aromawear? A passion for the world of healing, especially aromatherapy, was an integral force in the creative process leading to its formation.  In France she was first introduced to the world of energetic healing by the uncle of a friend. While working for Avon, first as their design director, and then as the director of their Beauty Packaging and Worldwide Jewelry and Accessories Program, she continued to study the nature of healing. 

 

She says, “I wanted to focus on healing but being a product person I wanted to come up with a product that also empowered people to self-care….I wanted to design something beautiful but also serve a function.” That function would involve using fragrances for such effects as calming or lifting the spirits, promoting good health, or creating your scentual experience.

 

 

 

Cathy’s unique vision pervades everything she does. She wears many hats, and one of them is to pass on her knowledge to students at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.  Here she has taught a course in Fashion Jewelry Design and Marketing for nine years. Just as with Aromawear, she strives to give her students new, expansive experiences and a means for self-expression. She describes her teaching and her business as “about empowering people to be self-expressed and self-actualized as designers and human beings and providing the tools that empower people.”

 

 

 

 

Watch Cathy’s new video and create your own “escentual” connection.

http://www.aromawear.com/videos.htm

 

– Marlene Goldsmith, Contributing Editor and Michelyn Camen, Editor-In- Chief