By Mayka Mei
Freshly lettered windows welcome Covet to the Richmond.
It was just another day in late April when Adrienne Lee Wiley was wandering through the Richmond. En route to picking up her husband from the airport, she saw a “For Lease” sign in a storefront on Arguello. It stuck in her mind. By her husband’s urgings, she contacted the owner. All it took was one more phone call to colleague Liza Anongchanya, and the two became co-founders of the new jewelry store, Covet.
If ever there were a reality show challenging its competitors to flip a store in two months, Wiley and Anongchanya would surely come out on top. It was never even a dream of Anongchanya’s, she says, to run a boutique, but now her Ofina line of jewelry is displayed prominently alongside Wiley’s Frolick label inside the pair’s very own shop.
It was all “very, very fast,” says Wiley.
“I hadn’t even showered yet!” Anongchanya, says of the moment when Wiley first phoned her. It seems Wiley convinced her partner just enough with the promise that the new store would also include studio space.
The two jewelry designers met about two years ago at the San Francisco event formerly known as Capsule (which re-emerged as Union Design Festival last weekend). Months later, they unexpectedly ran into each other at America’s Mart in Atlanta. Eventually, the two made their individual ways to San Francisco – Wiley via Atlanta, Anongchanya via Los Angeles – where they were both drawn to the area’s appreciation for the arts.
“The people and the vibe is so much better here,” Anongchanya says, comparing San Francisco to the Los Angeles jewelry-making scene. “They don’t try to haggle you down.”