Shoutout LA: Local Stories
Hi friends! I’m so excited to share my interview with Shoutout LA: Local Stories, a new feature designed to help get the word out about great local businesses, artists and creatives. Thank you to everyone at Shoutout LA for making this interview possible!
I shared the initial part of the interview for you below. You can find the entire interview and accompanying photos by clicking the link.
We had the good fortune of connecting with Carlie Ring and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Carlie, can you share the most important lesson you’ve learned over the course of your career?
I’m sure that we all have our own quirky anecdotes on life lessons. Whether personal or career related, one lesson has always stuck with me… share your story and be authentic.
Combining my longtime love for opal (my birthstone) and growing up at the beach were the natural inspiration for MPD. Those two factors really laid the groundwork for what I would create through jewelry. It’s easy for me now to say that finding myself in this sea-inspired jewelry niche feels like coming home. Early on, I designed and carved just about anything that came through as a custom request. I thought it was important to be open to those (financial) opportunities even if they didn’t quite fit within the MPD aesthetic and brand I knew in my heart. It took some time for me to realize that the opportunities that matched the MPD dream were always there, I just had to be more assertive in sharing my authentic story with my audience.
Slowly but surely the time I was putting in while working on MPD part time, late at night, and over weekends was beginning to click. I would excitedly tell the story about the name “Morgan Patricia” and how that sailboat story paired with my beachside childhood jumpstarted the authenticity of each of my ocean-hued capsule collections. Pair that with the years I spent working in luxury/high end jewelry PR and for a variety of jewelry and clothing designers, and I knew that I would give it my all when it came to sharing my story full time. Looking back, nearly all of the jobs I’ve held in the past were run by women who are really knocking it out of the park with their passion, creativity, knowledge, and desire to share their story. I owe so much of my determination to those experiences, and the biggest was the takeaway I knew of all along… “share your story and be authentic.” It was what drew me to each of those companies to begin with, and led my heart to building my own. Now, my story is no secret and it’s become a motto of sorts when discussing a purchase or connecting with a client over a custom design… The first thing you’ll see on the homepage of my website is a photo of mine from Costa Rica with the words “Collect your own sea inspired story.”
If you’d like to read the interview in its entirety, please click here. This interview dives into more of the MPD story, personal insights on how my career has grown and shifted over the years, AND my new fav spots since our move down to Long Beach last year!
I’m so thankful to you all for helping make my sea inspired dream a reality!
xoCarlie