In 2018, Max Johnson founded jewelry brand Awe Inspired with his mom Jill Johnson. Five years later, the mission-driven, family-run business has cultivated a loyal community of wearers that includes the likes of Taylor Swift, Karrueche Tran and Halle Berry.
The core collections of Awe Inspired jewelry feature goddesses from across cultures, in addition to highlighting other meaningful symbols and significant women of history (think Harriet Tubman and Marsha P. Johnson). What’s more, a portion of sales of each of these ethically-sourced pieces goes toward benefitting a number of charity organizations.
Evidently a dominant force in the jewelry industry, the only way up for Awe Inspired was to set down some roots. So in March 2023, it officially opened its first brick-and-mortar store in Los Angeles right along the esteemed shopping destination of Melrose Avenue.
Ahead of the grand opening Max Johnson caught up with Modern Luxury about why the store is a spiritual sanctuary, the Awe Inspired creative process and more.
Let’s look back to the beginning. You founded Awe Inspired with your mom in 2018 to make meaningful gifts and tokens of strength with exceptional quality. How does a piece of jewelry work to empower its wearer?
While my mom was recovering from breast cancer in 2018, she spoke with several women in her treatment ward about how they maintained the strength, hope and resilience to push towards survival. Many spoke about a turning point they experienced once they hit emotional rock bottom and saw the light at the end of the tunnel. This “moment of awe” inspired the beginning of our brand, and the experience of survivors continues to lie at the heart of Awe Inspired. The Goddess Necklace became our universal motif of strength, inspired by the lack of female representation in traditional medallion jewelry, particularly religious jewelry, and the incredible feedback we received from initial customers about the deeply moving experience of wearing a goddess next to your heart. A growing segment of jewelry buyers are looking for symbols of meaning to remind them of their values, goals, and sense of purpose: essentially the raison d’être of spiritual practice.
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Since Awe Inspired’s inception, you’ve committed portions of sales to various charity partners. Why was philanthropy essential for your business venture?
My mom has long used fine jewelry as a vehicle for giving back. She worked with the Aveda Foundation on diffuser jewelry, Oprah Winfrey on a bracelet that benefitted the Fistula Foundation, Children's Cancer Research Fund on a necklace, etc. She had long toyed with the idea of designing an elevated/luxury equivalent of the LiveStrong bracelet, plainly a wearable symbol of strength that survivors could use to acknowledge each other. Over the years we've modified our charity partners to reflect the values of our customers. We use data around which charity was selected at checkout to refine our list of partners, all of whom share a set of values around women's rights advocacy, reproductive justice, racial justice and environmental protection. Giving back is a core value prop of gifting Awe to your loved ones: you get the joy of a beautiful symbol of strength and the additional gift of supporting our amazing charity partners.
What is the creative process like behind developing new pieces? We’d love to know all about why you pick certain goddesses.
Most of our creative roadmap is now driven by customers. We’ve very successfully leveraged surveys on Instagram Stories, as well as longer form Typeform surveys sent to our loyal customers to set a product roadmap and refine design concepts. Every year we run a “goddess bracket” over social media where customers actively participate in our goddess roadmap. Once we slot products into the calendar, we build collections with supporting symbols and pieces to create a full aesthetic around our goddesses. We strive to make our representation of various goddess pantheons as inclusive as possible, while also doing our absolute best to portray goddesses from all cultures in the most honorific and respectful way possible. As the most prominent jewelry brand in this space, we’ve taken on a responsibility to provide each customer a goddess that speaks to their identity.
You previously noted how during the pandemic, people shifted their personal spending from events and experiences to more meaningful products. Do you still see this happening?
We consider seeing incredible growth year over year and rising lifetime value of our customers, indicating to us that the trend towards meaningful vs. plainly fashion products is continuing. Historically during times of societal unrest, people have turned to products and practices that speak to their spirituality (aka their search for purpose and meaning). This year a significant part of our growth strategy is building a community in our new retail locations via events and spiritual experiences. Our digital quizzes have been strong drivers of lifetime value: we see customers who have taken our quiz have 35% higher 12-month LTV on average. We believe we can leverage our authority in the spiritual wellness space to build in-person programming to further enrich our customer’s loyalty to our brand.
How does inner spirituality guide you as an entrepreneur and how does it elevate Awe Inspired above competitors?
Engaging in my own spiritual journey has cemented my sense of purpose in building Awe. It’s driven me to take better care of my own well-being so I have the energy and enthusiasm to provide our customers with stunning and meaningful pieces, delightful digital experiences and social justice advocacy. My movement away from organized religion and towards a bespoke spiritual value set (deep love for the natural world, fascination with the cosmos, a spiritual connection to my husband, etc.) has been transformative for my emotional wellbeing. Our brand has consistently acted with a big heart, a welcoming approach and a consistent effort to speak up for the causes we believe in. Our mission isn’t to decorate people with fashionable jewelry; we are working to give our customers a sense of Awe every time they touch their goddess piece. This authenticity is palpable when you read the content on our site or the familial relationship we have with our top customers. We’ve also carved out quite a unique niche (elevated, luxurious spiritual jewelry) and have been able to trademark our goddess designs after we uncovered multiple dupes/copycats.
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From Taylor Swift to Halle Berry, a number of celebrities have worn Awe Inspired jewelry. Do you have a moment— whether a high-profile wearer or something else— that you are most proud of?
I was in NYC at the end of 2019 and saw my first Goddess Necklace in the wild— that blew me away more than any celeb placement. In L.A. now I see someone wearing Awe in the wild at least once a month. It still gives me goosebumps.
But yes, we’ve been very fortunate with the organic celebrity pickup of our brand. Some of my favorites:
Madonna, who has the largest private collection of Frida Kahlo pieces, wearing our Frida necklace.
Meghan Markle wearing our Woman Power necklace while campaigning for vaccine adoption.
Billie Eillish wearing our Mother Mary pendant.
Halle Berry, Tyra Banks and Keke Palmer wearing our Harriet Tubman necklace throughout the summer of 2020.
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez wearing our Marsha P. Johnson necklace when she was nominated for her first Emmy.
Witch enthusiast Vanessa Hudgens in our Hecate necklace throughout October 2021.
Awe Inspired has officially opened its first flagship store. What experience do you hope to offer fans of the brand by having a retail space?
Wow, so many! We have incredible brand partnerships lined up for the rest of the year that will all have an in-store event/party activation (Dipsea, InkBox, Miss Grass, SadGirlsClub, Intelligent Change, Saje and more). We will be having weekly spiritual activations (sound baths, dream analysis, reiki, tarot reading, ceremonial cacao, ear seeding). We also will be debuting a large-scale version of our Goddess Quiz. We’ll have a manifestation Goddess alter to collect manifestations and burn during full moon ceremonies.
See also: 5 Must-Have Jewelry Books To Make Your Library Shine
You have plans to open locations in New York and London later this year. What else does the future look like for Awe Inspired?
The sky’s the limit. We’ll be expanding to new product categories in the Spiritual Wellness space, most imminently a Goddess Journal concept, ritual jewelry including essential oil diffuser jewelry and a manifestation capsule, candles and room sprays and crystals. We’re building out our Sanctuary Goods multi-brand marketplace to feature other categories like sexual wellness, yoga and meditation products, and anything else that accompanies spiritual ritual. We’re additionally building out The Goddess Voice, our content platform, where we’ll be speaking with some of our incredible high-profile fans around how they practice spiritual wellness routines.
Awe Inspired is located at 8446 Melrose Ave. 90069
Photography by: Courtesy of Awe Inspired
