How a pivot to hair accessories led to business success

An important development from the financial markets: How a pivot to hair accessories led to business success 22 April 2026 Share Save Add as preferred on Google Zoe Corbyn Business reporter, San Francisco Jenny Lemons Jennie Lennick's hair clips are all based on food "I tell people, 'I make food-themed accessories' and boom – they get it," says Jennie Lennick. For the San Francisco-based artist and entrepreneur that niche underpins a thriving retail business. The 39-year-old runs a small Californian accessories brand called Jenny Lemons.

It is best known for its quirky, colourful hair claw clips, made from a plant-based alternative to conventional, petroleum plastic. She designs the products, selling them directly on her website, and wholesale to around 1,500 independent retail stores in the US and internationally. And all the hair clips are themed around food.

Economic Details

If you want to wear rainbow chard, a sardine tin, or a TV dinner in your hair, Lennick has a clip for that, though the company's bestseller is a strawberry. "They are small, affordable luxuries that add a little bit of flair and fun," says Lennick. The company, which takes its name from Lennick's college DJ moniker, didn't begin as an accessories brand.

Originally from Minnesota, and with more than six years at art school, Lennick launched the business in 2015 as a food-themed, hand-printed clothing line, based in San Francisco's trendy Mission district. She expanded the venture, opening a physical shop in the neighborhood in 2018, selling her clothes along with products made by other artists. But the store proved punishing - staffing costs were high, rent kept rising, and foot traffic never recovered after the pandemic.

She closed it at the end of 2023, $90,000 (£66,000) in debt. The pivot to hair accessories began the year before when, selling her clothes at a craft fair, Lennick met a hair claw vendor who shared a contact for a factory in China. Lennick started to produce her own - food-themed, naturally - and sales online quickly outpaced that of her clothing.

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"They were keeping the store open," she says, and the obvious future. Jenny Lemons The hair clips are said to have a cult following Lennick's studio today is a downstairs room in her home in one of San Francisco's outer neighborhoods. Lennick draws her clips on her tablet, chooses their colors from a library of samples and sends the designs to her long-time Chinese factory, which produces a prototype.

Her style, she explains, pares food down to its essentials, and she rarely uses more than three colours to aid wearability. She also watches food trends - the sardine tin claw clip is because tinned fish is having a moment. And she is adding designs inspired by seasons and festive occasions, including a pumpkin spice latte hair clip that debuted this past autumn.

Financial markets are tracking the development closely as investors assess the likely impact.