Brittany Clark is an artist, entrepreneur and a trailblazer. She is the owner of Chained Melody, and she specializes in permanent jewelry.
Clark considers permanent jewelry to be a bracelet without a clasp. A customer will walk into her shop and select a chain. Clark then welds the metal together to form a custom bracelet that stays on the wrist. Common materials Clark uses include 14-karat gold and sterling silver.
Clark started making jewelry as a hobby when she was working in her previous job with a beer distributor. While she was in Chicago with a friend in 2022, Clark discovered permanent jewelry. Chicago was one of the only places in the area it could be found at the time. Clark did some research and decided to give creating permanent jewelry a try.
“I was like ‘that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start doing it,’ because I'm the type of person that thinks I can do anything,” Clark said. “I just dove in and did it, and then opened the small location where I was just renting a room.”
Permanent bracelets are not only Clark’s specialty, but also her favorite. She likes to see generations of families come into the shop to purchase matching bracelets.
“You may have a daughter, a mom and a grandmother, and they want to get bracelets together,” Clark said. “It’s like a bonding experience.”
Clark has been driven to succeed from the very beginning. She focuses on her goals and pushes herself to strive for excellence. Clark feels as a business owner, if she doesn’t push herself to succeed, nobody will do it for her. Part of the secret to her success is to not only produce high quality merchandise, but also provide stellar customer service.
“I'm huge on building relationships with all my clients,” Clark said. “Even in the beer industry, you build that customer relationship. That is what sells – building a relationship with your client.”
While there has been plenty of growth for Clark recently, there has also been some challenging experiences. Last September, Chained Melody had a fire that put them out of business for two months. Clark had purchased a power bank to provide electricity for her booth at the Nappanee Apple Festival. The power bank was charging overnight when its lithium battery exploded and started the fire. When she decided to file an insurance claim after the fire, she was surprised to find out she had only liability insurance.
“I had no help from insurance whatsoever,” Clark said. “That was honestly worse than the fire because then I was really on my own cleaning things and having to replace items that were damaged from the fire. That was hard.”
However, Clark rose from the ashes like a phoenix after the fire.
Chained Melody moved into a store in downtown Elkhart at 124 S. Main St. with triple the amount of space of its previous location. The Main Street location just opened its doors on April 19. Clark hopes to open a second store located in Nappanee within six months.
Clark was born and raised in Elkhart and graduated from Elkhart Memorial High School. She and her husband, Steve, are raising their three children in her hometown. She’s invested in the Elkhart Community School, as she has served on the Parent Teacher Organization board at her children’s elementary school. Clark also helps out with the athletic programs at Elkhart High School. Her daughter just competed in the State wrestling tournament and her husband is also involved as a coach. She loves the sense of community Elkhart has to offer.
“We really wanted to be a part of the community,” Clark said. “We grew up here, and I just feel like we want to be a part of the change to make Elkhart better. We're pretty invested within the community. That's why I wanted to keep my business here. I want to make Elkhart a destination place.”