LANCASTER, Pa. — A Lancaster-based jewelry company is getting a lot of attention, after Taylor Swift was spotted wearing one of its handcrafted diamond bracelets during the AFC Championship last month.
The Wove bracelet, which is etched with the letters "TNT," was gifted to Swift by her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs' tight end, Travis Kelce. He also had a matching bracelet made for himself.
“We’re all hands on deck trying to react to this from a PR perspective but also an ordering perspective," said Drew Wolgemuth, the company's founder, last month. "Our jewelry sales are up over 450 percent, our website traffic is up over 2,500 percent so we’re really just trying to play catch up and are along for the ride.”
But the story behind how Wove, now a venture-backed startup, came to be is pretty cool.
Wolgemuth, who is a Lancaster native, and his co-founder Brian were both Army rangers at West Point.
In 2021, they founded Wove, after getting the idea while on a deployment to Afghanistan.
"We worked with couples remotely to design engagement rings, really with a lot of our service members, really to design engagement rings while deployed," Wolgemuth explained.
Instead of shipping an expensive engagement ring overseas to Afghanistan, the pair started a replica process.
"We custom-designed and shipped realistic replicas overseas so they could try it before they bought the real thing and then when they got back from Afghanistan, we built the real thing," said Wolgemuth.
He explained that through the COVID-19 pandemic, they found couples all over the United States wanted this kind of unique design experience, while being able to skip going to the jewelry store.
"They want the ability to work with a designer, design a ring, and receive their Wove replica prior to building the real thing," said Wolgemuth. "What surprises a lot of people is those Wove replicas are indistinguishable from the final ring. If you held up the final and the replica side by side, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. It's plated in gold versus solid gold and we use cubic zirconium versus diamonds."
The final rings are handcrafted by goldsmiths at the company's Lancaster workshop, which is located at 617 N Prince Street.
It also has designers working in other parts of the country.
Jewelry is in Wolgemuth's blood—his family owns Koser Jewelers, which is also based in Lancaster.
"That was really [where my] jewelry background [came from] for Wove," he said.
Along the way, the company teamed up with professional golfer, Michelle Wie, who Drew and Brian met through an investor.
"Michelle's been a big supporter of Wove for a long time," Wolgemuth said.
Wove has been working with Wie for a little over a year.
"She did a collaborative collection through Wove where we designed both the friendship bracelet that you see Taylor wearing, and Travis, a necklace and a set of earrings as well," said Wolgemuth.
It was Michelle who ended up being the bridge between Wove and Travis Kelce, who she is friends with through the sports world.
"Michelle was talking to Travis and Travis wanted to get Taylor a special gift that was customized to their relationship," said Wolgemuth. "He told us he wanted a TNT diamond tennis bracelet and so that was really kind of how this whole journey started."
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