Just get married? Turning 60? Off to the beach? Just want to have fun? There’s a martini for that. And a martini glass.
In 2001, Lolita Healy, president and CEO of Designs by Lolita, went out for a night with her friends and saw her first martini menu.
“It was early in the ‘Sex and the City’ days, when the martini became popular for women,” Healy said recently. “There were 12 different drinks, on the menu. Each of us picked a different one.”
Healy chose a Cosmopolitan.
An artist by training, Healy said she was struck by the variety of drinks; the colors, the ingredients and, of course, the glasses.
With two small children, she and her husband were struggling to make ends meet. So she decided to hand-paint a few martini glasses with drink recipes on the bottom. She sold them to friends, then went door to door, selling the glasses to neighbors and a local retailer before forming her business in 2004.
From Atlanta, Healy relocated to New England in 2006, working in a studio on the East Side of Providence.
Today, Designs by Lolita is a $54 million company (2008 sales) – double its worth in 2007 – working with 10 manufacturers, in 27 factories selling martini, wine, pilsner and hot-beverage glasses around the world. She’s predicting sales to jump to $65 million in 2010.
“It’s a fun thing to talk about,” she said. “My gosh, look where it’s come since” the business started.
Healy earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and fine arts from Mary Baldwin College in Virginia. After school, she worked in the cosmetics industry, then in the fashion and fashion- marketing fields.
As a regional manager for a local, licensed fashion designer, she learned about licensing a business, which she did three and a half years after she began painting martini glasses in her kitchen.
Despite the cheeky, pop art designs of her glasses, the experience hasn’t been all fun and games.
“It’s just been such an exciting road, but also a very difficult one,” Healy said, “especially for a working mom.”
Healy has two daughters; both go to school near her studio, which makes it easy for them to pop by after school. As the girls get older, it’s easier to work and travel, she said, but in the beginning, she recalls working on her glasses with one girl holding onto each leg.
“I hope every woman can take a passion or an idea and research it,” Healy said, “There are different business models you can use, you don’t have to go into debt.”
To help other businesswomen, Healy has been vocal about her belief that to have a career and a family is an attainable goal. She has made appearances on television – including Better Homes and Garden TV – and radio programs.
She is also active in the Women’s Leadership Exchange, an organization aimed at helping successful women run businesses, network and learn ways to maintain their careers while dealing with life outside the office.
And though it sounds like Designs by Lolita is successful now, Healy has bigger plans – many already in the works. She is working on a television pilot with a “well-known TV personality” for a television show about girls’ nights in.
Her book, “Martini Moments,” will be released in January. Each chapter is organized around a moment in time when a martini might be appropriate – recipes, appetizers, party ideas and even suggested music play lists are all included.
And Healy is developing a line of linens, starting with upscale beachwear and accessories. In five years, Healy expects to still be designing. She also sees herself with her own television show, “Like Martha Stewart, but a little more fun,” she said. •
