d’Forsythe Jewelry is a unique niche business with one-of-a-kind necklaces recognized as “Dolores pieces” by folks across Coronado, but it’s now coming to an end after a quarter century.
Dolores Forsythe, the 76-year-old jewelry designer, said she introduced global gemstones to Coronado through imported and handmade pieces over two decades, yet she’s now planning the next stage in her life.
“It’s not fine jewelry, but it’s not costume jewelry,” she said. “It’s gemstone jewelry, but it’s funky gemstone jewelry, it’s ethnic, it’s boho.”
Forsythe has garnered over 1,000 followers across different social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube, and she says she’s selling her cache “of collected beads and icons and amulets,”
“I was just bagging up some amazing stuff because we’re putting it all in little bags and selling for $35,” she said.”It’s all the things that I’ve collected over the years that now I’m saying it can go.”
Forsythe said her business is jewelry, but “I’ve got 700 bags of beads, so Instagram and Facebook are the places to do it.”
Open house
d’Forsythe Jewelry is having an open house Thursday (March 9) and Friday (March 10) during which all of merchandise will be 45% off for the closeout, she said.
People interested in purchasing current inventory or beads may do so by visiting the business website at dforsythe.com or by contacting Forsythe at (619) 435-9211 to make an appointment to visit the studio in person, she said. (Story continues after the photos)
Prior to d’Forsythe Jewelry, Forsythe worked as a management consultant for Fortune 500 companies, but she said she grew tired of traveling and never being home.
In searching for the next thing in life, she and her late husband decided to travel to Southeast Asia.
“I was very moved by the [Vietnamese] women,” she said. “They were very hardworking. They took care of the children, they took care of each other.”
During a trip in the 1990s, she said she was inspired to help women and children through a jewelry business.
The first priority was to uplift a woman’s morale or self-esteem, creating an environment that was welcoming and supported women in feeling good about themselves with jewelry, she said.
Her second priority was to help women and children by giving back through microloan programs that can teach women self-reliance and encourage them to start their own businesses.
In Vietnam, Forsythe met shop owner Huong Ngothu and three other women who knotted pearls all day.
“I bought 13 strings of pearls, and then I hired a marketing company,” she said.
Selling to sororities
Forsythe said that New York marketing company Blue Shoe Strategy did research and encouraged her to do sorority jewelry with the pearls from Vietnam.
Forsythe then sold six millimeter white pearl necklaces with sorority Greek letters that hung in tiny silver charms, along with bracelets and pearl earrings wholesale to college sororities nationwide.
She later attended the International Jewelry Show in Thailand, an annual gems and jewelry fair in Bangkok, which is entering its 68th year in September.
“I was blown away by the jewelry there,” she said. “I started buying jewelry and then my husband and I started traveling all over the world buying jewelry.”
Since then, d’Forsythe jewelry has bought and sold pieces from India, Paris, Turkey, Vietnam, and other cities, she said.
“I could have five different countries in one necklace.”
-Dolores Forsythe
“I could have five different countries in one necklace, like the pendants from Nepal and the embers from India or Prague, and then the clasp is from Bangkok,” she said.
Forsythe said that after two years of working hard and selling jewelry, she finally opened a shop in Coronado more than two decades ago.
“One day, one of my friends said to me, there’s an office that’s opening up on Orange Avenue upstairs,” she said. “I rented that space, and then I was there for 20 years.”
Philanthropic efforts for women
While Forsythe developed her clientele in Coronado, she continued to travel twice a year for her business.
“In the spring, I went to Europe to buy jewelry,” she said. “In the fall, I went to Southeast Asia.”
While d’Forsythe jewelry shifted its focus from pearls and expanded onto other gemstones, it holds the same mission, she said.
“A portion of all of my sales from the very beginning have gone back to women,” she said.
At first, the money went to international microloan programs, but now she’s focused on local causes.
She said she recently did a charity event where 100% of the profits went to Coronado High School, Soroptimist, Generate Hope and Safe Harbor.
One microloan recipient in San Diego was a Hispanic woman who didn’t speak English. Now the woman has been making jewelry for Forsythe for over 10 years, and makes a lot of jewelry on her own, said Forsythe.
International jewelry
d’Forsythe jewelry has experienced many changes which include transitioning from buying, to creating, to altering, and to teaching other women how to make necklaces.
After the pandemic, the d’Forsythe shop in 2021 closed and the jewelry only existed in a home studio where people could shop and request jewelry pieces.
“I only make things that I think I would wear,” she said. “And now that I’m closing, it’s very hard to part with some of those pieces.”
A new chapter
After 25 years, Forsythe remains in contact with Ngothu and other jewelry sellers abroad, which she considers like family.
“The greatest takeaway is the relationships that I’ve developed with not only my clients, but also with my vendors, and also with the women that I’ve helped,” she said. “I never felt that I had that crossover into the personal part of people’s lives, which this business allowed me to do because I got to run the show and I decided where the boundaries were.”
Forsythe is working towards closing her business in the next couple of months, without a strict deadline.
“My husband died a year ago and now my priorities are different,” she said. “It was the business that he and I did together. We traveled together to buy jewelry. He was very involved.”
Recent monthlong travels last October from Paris to India to Singapore, not buying jewelry and “just taking art classes,” convinced Forsythe that she is prepared for something new.
“I just want to travel now for fun,” she said. “I just want to enjoy while I’m still healthy.”
Turning the page
The legacy of d’Forsythe will follow her as she intends to bring its existence to a gradual cease.
“I tried to sell the business at one point, but what the broker told me was that the business is so integrated and so much about me,” she said. “The customers would come, and if I wasn’t at the shop, they’d say, ‘I’ll come back when Dolores is there.’”
Apart from traveling, Forsythe intends to continue teaching women how to make jewelry.
“I’ll miss it,” she said. “I have wonderful memories. It’ll leave a big hole in my life because it’s a language, it’s a relationship, and it won’t be the same.”
