Today we’d like to introduce you to Sha’Ron Robertson.
Hi Sha’Ron, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in a family of entertainers, entrepreneurs, authors, and artists. My family invests in all areas of real estate and has taught me to be an entrepreneur since I was a child. At the age of 3, I was already selling cookies inspired by my nickname, Princess. The cookies were named “Princess Cookies.” By the time I entered elementary school, I was selling cookies and all types of baked goods and candy. I had a yard raking business and had other children in my area that I hired and worked under me while we worked our neighborhood raking yards. In junior high, I started on my first book and wrote tons of poetry. I published my first poetry book, titled “Yes, I feel” in 2019. As a freshman in high school, I created my gossip and news platform and created a website for it as well. By junior year I was taking professional pictures and started doing graphic art design. Senior year, I started my own business in doing company logos, websites, flyers, and digital portraits.
My first year of college in 2017 is when I decided to pursue a dream of mine, which was to be a fashion designer, and I did just that. My clothing brand THE VAULT is a custom sustainable clothing brand where we sell custom vault designs, upcycled or reworked thrifted clothing, my first year in business was amazing, making five figures in one week, the sales came from a viral post I made that reached over a million people. Since then, with me now about to graduate college with my bachelor’s this year in business management, The Vault has shipped to all 50 US states and about eight countries, on what I am proud to say is now a regular basis. As of this month, April 30th, The Vault will be headlining our first fashion week show for Chicago Fashion Week powered by Fashion Bar, I am beyond excited for this amazing opportunity given to me by the CEO of Fashion Bar, Tony Long, he has a mission to help identify Chicago as a major fashion destination and I’m honored that I can participate in such a historical moment for Fashion Bar and our city. I hope to be a part of future Chicago Fashion Week shows as well as fashion week shows held in other major cities.
Outside of clothing, I have my own natural and organic beauty brand called “SAUVAGE BEAUTY” being sold at SHOPSAUVAGEBEAUTY.COM, Sauvage is a luxury yet attainable beauty brand, we pride ourselves in creating the best “high-end” beauty products for an affordable price for men and women. These two endeavors only add to my previous ventures that I have been doing for many years now with my digital art, books, hand-drawn art, and business services. I plan to continue to grow my businesses and myself as I take on a new journey of being an influencer as well, I have learned the ins and outs when it comes to promoting a business and have taken what I’ve learned from my own trial and error and now help other businesses, small and large, promote their brands across my social platforms, I reach about a million views per month now on my platforms and they are growing rapidly, I am happy to be able to use what I’ve learned from personal experience and what I’ve learned in college before even receiving my degree to now assist others.
In 2019 my art pieces were selected to be a part of Barrio Panther Magazine Vol. 3. Along with this, my art was also featured at the Border Tuner, a two-week art installation that connects the El Paso/Juarez border through sound, light, and video. After this, my art was placed in Brave voices literary & art magazine for their 4th issue. Throughout 2022 I am planning to continue to submit my art and poetry to galleries and magazines, so everyone, please be on the lookout for new placements and support all of my ventures moving forward! I greatly appreciate everyone that has supported me throughout my life and my career so far.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The journey of entrepreneurship has been a learning journey. Definitely, one in which I have had to overcome many obstacles. I’ve had to learn how to properly communicate with customers and have gone through numerous shipping complications with thousands of dollars worth of lost packages and inventory. I have had to learn how to properly market my businesses to hit my target audiences and waste time, energy, and money on ads and working with influencers, who as it turns out were not what I needed to grow my businesses. I’ve gone through slow sales periods where I made very little or nothing at all. It’s all a part of being an entrepreneur, you never know what your next obstacle may be, for example, covid-19, which took me and other business owners through a lot businesswise, financially, and mentally as we struggled to stay afloat during shutdowns.
When working for yourself, you don’t have the luxury of time off, especially in the early stages, so I’ve had to learn to keep pushing through whatever may happen, whether that may be struggling to balance school deadlines with business, losing close family members, trying to hold onto friends who may not understand my battles with business, relationships, etc. I definitely take time to rest now though and make sure I’m okay to move forward mentally and emotionally because running a business will take a lot out of you, but no matter what I go through, my businesses never stop, and neither do I. No one ever said the road to being an entrepreneur was easy, but waking up proud of where I am makes all of the struggle worth it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Vault & Sauvage Beauty?
I’d say I’m known for my strong work ethic, when I get started on a project there’s no stopping me, I keep going until it’s how I envisioned it. What sets me apart from others is that I don’t keep myself in a box when it comes to learning or creativity. I like to learn a little bit of everything, I know a lot of what people may call random skills or facts, but those “random” things tend to always come in handy when I least expect it. My parents, specifically my father, taught me young that I should learn a little of everything because you never know when you’ll need certain skills, and you may not always be able to have someone around you to help in certain situations. You never want to be stuck in a situation, lost with no help, especially when it’s something you could so easily take time to learn yourself. I’m very proud of this way of thinking I was raised under because it’s enabled me to grow so much as a businesswoman and as a woman in general. Brandwise I am most proud of my fast growth and consistency, I started with nothing at all and turned it into a brand name that people recognize, I’m not a big brand yet, but I’m also not so small anymore, and that’s amazing for me. I have so much in store for The Vault and Sauvage, I can’t speak on it all just yet but just know big things are coming this year and next year!
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
When it comes to childhood memories, I don’t think I have one “favorite”, I have tons of amazing memories made spending time with my parents, siblings, grandparents and cousins over the years. I have numerous “favorites”, family trips, parties and just the little moments when we’re all together, I couldn’t think of just one if I tried. These are memories that I’ll cherish forever because they are no doubt, collectively the best moments of my childhood if not best moments of my life thus far.
Contact Info:
- Email: TheVaultReloaded@gmail.com
- Website: TheVaultReloaded.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/TheVaultReloaded
- Facebook: Facebook.com/ShopSauvageBeauty
- Twitter: twitter.com/vaultreloaded
- Other: ShopSauvageBeauty.com
