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Drum Roll: No Risk, No Win
Esther Carretero says Atlanta is ready for Spanish jewelry.
by Lucy Soto
May 30, 2008
F
rom languages to lollipops – and then to sweet Spanish jewelry, Esther Carretero’s life
and career has been strung together like one of the trendy necklaces she now sells. Offbeat and
unexpected, yet somehow just the right fit.
The Dunwoody resident, a Spaniard who has worked in England, Russia and China, has become a
kind of ambassador for an alternative to the expected flavors of Tiffany and Cartier. She opened
her franchise for Tous, a Spain-based jewelry company, a few years ago in Lenox Square and now has
a second location in Alpharetta’s North Point Mall.
Here in the
States and particularly in the South, Carretero says jewelry is viewed as an investment that is
worn a lifetime. Tous has those kinds of classic pieces, but she says it’s geared toward a more
light-hearted approach.
“It’s about fun and how to express yourself through jewelry,” says Carretero, who turns 40
in September.
“These pieces are like fashion clothing,” she says. “It’s something you can change every day
to dress you up or down, and it complements how you feel that day. It complements what you wear …
your personality. You will look at the piece. You just feel good wearing them. It’s like when you
buy new shoes or clothes.”
Tous began as a family’s watchmaker shop in 1920 and morphed into a jewelry store. By the
mid-1980s, it began incorporating its trademark bear shape into gold, silver, and diamond jewelry
as well as purses and perfume. Today, the company continues to be a family-run operation and has
240 boutiques worldwide, from Andorra and Argentina to Sweden and Venezuela. In the United States,
the company is in seven states and cities like Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.
Tous is pronounced like “toast” without the last t (or like the little appendages on our
feet). And although it isn’t close yet to becoming a household name or reaching Tiffany–level
status in the States, Tous and its little bear is definitely the in thing in Spain and in many
Spanish-speaking countries around the world.
Carretero’s challenge will be to create that popularity in Atlanta. It turns out, her career
path has prepped her fairly well to do that.
“With her international background and language, and marketing and sales background, she has
a wide professional experience,” says her husband, Jorg Viader, who worked with her at Chupa Chups,
a Barcelona-born lollipop company with a logo designed by surrealist Salvador Dali. “She’s the
perfect ambassador. She comes from Spain. She has the beauty and attitude. … [Last year, Jezebel
Magazine named Carretero one of 2007’s 50 most beautiful Atlantans.] Everything together makes the
right mix,” he says, for introducing Tous to Atlanta.
Carretero was born in a small town outside of Madrid. She studied English and language
theory at the university there, intending to become a translator or teacher. Yet, halfway through,
she decided that sort of life wasn’t for her.
She started looking for other jobs and landed one with McLane, a giant American distribution
company. But because of her inexperience she was hired to train as a secretary. After five or six
months, she decided that wasn’t a good fit either. But she was lucky enough to have a boss who
believed in her smarts. He let her train in, and experience, different aspects of the
company.
With McLane, she
moved to the United Kingdom to be a buyer. When she decided to return home, she jumped to Chupa
Chups, the international confectionary company. Chupa Chups sent her to St. Petersburg, Russia, for
six months and to Shanghai, China, for a one-year stint that turned into two years. The detour
would be life-changing.
While there, in the midst of a small community of expats, she met her German husband, Jorg
Viader.
She and Viader moved to Atlanta when her first child was 2 months old. He ran Chupa Chups’
operations here, and she was in charge of marketing for a new product line in Mexico, Brazil and
the United States. The stay was supposed to be for a year. They’ve now been here for more than six
years.
Not long after the move, Carretero decided to leave Chupa Chups. “As much as it hurt for me
to leave the company, it was the right moment for me to do that,” she says. She got her executive
MBA, and got pregnant. “I found out it was twins, and then I finished my MBA, had my babies and
said, ‘What do I want to do?’ I knew I wanted to do something different.”
Today, her daughter Alexandra is 6, and twins, Salma and Lucia, turn 3 this month.
Chupa Chups was sold nearly two years ago to the Dutch/Italian makers of Mentos. Soon
afterward, Viader left the company to take a year sabbatical. It was perfect timing to lend
support to Carretero’s new venture.
“For a year, I was a zombie,” she says. “I had no rest or sleep, [with the babies] and
the excitement of the stores.”
Now, with two franchise stores, she is beginning to feel her growing market.
“When I first opened … I knew I had to work on getting the brand name out there. The pieces
are big and chunky, different in style. I thought Latin American, and then African-American [would
be the first markets].
“I was surprised at the Caucasian women who have been following the brand. They are our
fastest growing segment. They come to buy the handbags and then buy their first pieces of
jewelry. And they are stepping out of the box to buy some funky earrings or necklace.”
For Carretero, a phrase in Spanish sums up her jump into the world of jewelry – and much
else about her life: “El que no arriesga, no gana” – He who doesn’t risk, doesn’t win.
“If you put your heart and believe in what you’re doing, and it complements you, no matter
what you do, you’ll be successful,” she says. “It goes with everything, with being a mom, a
housewife, a daughter.”
