trans & queer owned fine jewelry in boston — why it matters

in case it wasn’t obvious: we didn’t land in fine jewelry by accident — we’re here, we’re queer and we’re gonna make you some fine ass jewelry.

fine jewelry is quite funny, truly. this is an industry where women drive over 90% (!!!) of global jewelry demand, yet still the ownership and decision-making skews: primarily white, certainly cisgender, and definitely male. trickling all the way down to whose bodies and love stories deserve to be imagined in the first place.

If you’ve ever walked into a big-box jewelry store or an antique shop and been scoffed at because of how you look, how you were dressed, who you showed up with; we’re here for you. lettuce goods is for everyone who has been treated like they don’t belong in rooms selling “heirlooms.” cause what does that even mean?!

as a trans & lesbian women-owned studio, 14karatdoll and lettuce goods were built as an antithesis to this world; built to interrupt it. we make pieces that don’t ask who you are to be deserving of them. solid gold and sterling for whoever shows up that day: loud, soft, masc, femme, neither/both or just figuring it out (cause we kinda all are!).

zooming out a moment; while the U.S. economy has thrown trillions at startups over the past two decades, less than 1% of that has gone to LGBTQ+ founders because lenders “don’t support business like theirs” (lol). Often meaning we’re using our own funds to survive. Meanwhile, the research shows that LGBTQ-led companies create more jobs and more innovation per dollar than average… it’s never the talent — it’s always the access.
so yes, it matters who gets to hold the torch and the solder, etc. etc. etc..

our work, like us, is boundless, glittery and stubborn:
-hand-cast charms to hold onto.
-rings built for hands that have shifted and changed, and will continue to.
-chains that don’t care how your body reads to the world around it.

lettuce goods is the love letter to all of us who were told we “weren’t the customer.”

thanks for being here <3

data & research referenced come from industry equity reports, global jewelry market surveys, the Federal Reserve Small Business Credit Survey, and LGBTQ+ startup funding analyses.