JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Yeah, Mitchell Binder’s folks were worried about him at one time.
“Oh, absolutely,” he says with a laugh. “But I really went from the black sheep of the family to the patriarch.”
A Jackson native, Mitchell grew up working at the now-closed Olde Tyme Deli owned by his aunt and uncle, Judy and Irv Feldman.
Now he sells jewelry to the likes of Steven Tyler, Usher, Taylor Swift, Rihanna and other musicians and celebrities.
Mitchell’s parents separated when he was young. His mother took him and his siblings to California, where “I just fell in love with the culture and the music,” he says.
At 15 years old, Mitchell became a jeweler’s apprentice. Then he started designing his own pieces. He honed his craft in college, created “more complex” designs, and eventually his business gained traction.
He went to Europe for a trade show - twice in one year.
“First time I went, huge success. Second time I went, all of my designs had been knocked off and everyone else’s booths were half the price. I took it very badly and personally and I just quit the business,” he says, laughing again.
Mitchell met with a friend at Warner Brothers, got a job dragging cable and worked his way up to writer.
“(I was working on) an embarrassing show with Pamela Anderson. It was the one where she was the detective. I forget what it was.”
(“V.I.P.,” in case anyone’s wondering.)
Here’s where things get crazy:
Around that time, eBay was on the rise.
“I had a buddy of mine put all of my old samples that were in the garage on eBay, and I had a fan base in Japan that I knew nothing about. Something I would sell for a hundred dollars, they would pay a thousand for it,” he says.
“A fellow from Tokyo flew over to L.A. with a briefcase full of cash and bought everything out of my garage that I’d ever made. I couldn’t believe it.”
Mitchell took the cash - “It was probably about $18,000,” he says - quit Warner Brothers, and started King Baby Studio. That was in 2000.
Another big break came when a friend of Mitchell’s walked into a Neiman Marcus store in Beverly Hills, and a manager stopped him to ask where he’d gotten his bracelet. It was a King Baby design.
“I flew to Dallas, and the meeting started with one person, then two people, then before you know it the room was about 20 people full and the CEO of Neiman Marcus came in, and they all said, ’We don’t know what this is but we want to try it,’” Mitchell recalls.
He picked a few cities to test his product at Neiman stores: Las Vegas, Miami and Beverly Hills.
They were sold out in 10 days.
Neiman Marcus took King Baby nationwide, and Mitchell became the fastest vendor to hit $1 million in sales in the department store’s history.
“And I still hold that title today. That was pretty cool. That changed everything.”
Sigmund Freud coined the term King Baby “to denote a mental condition where the patient believes the world revolves around them,” Mitchell says.
“I read that and I said, ’You know, some of my customers are a lot like that. And maybe I’m a little bit like that.’ So that’s where the name (of the studio) came from.”
But Mitchell doesn’t have a bad word to say about his famous clientele - some of whom, like Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith, he met in his early days in California.
“(One) of my biggest friends right now (is) this guy Jason Momoa. He’s going to be launching next year, I think, a movie called ’Aquaman.’”
(Momoa will first star in a little movie called “The Justice League” in November.)
Mitchell calls Momoa, who also appeared on “Game of Thrones” as Khal Drogo, “my most enthusiastic fan. He comes into that shop and just, the lights shine a little brighter, because he’s like a kid in a candy store. He’s running around screaming, putting stuff on.”
Other friends Mitchell’s made lately? Arnold Schwarzenegger and Joe Manganiello.
But it’s not just big buff dudes wearing King Baby stuff. There’s also been Jennifer Lopez. Brad Pitt. Howard Stern. LL Cool J. Adrien Brody. Randy Jackson. Adriana Lima. Bruce Willis.
And there’s a mile-long list of musical artists. Deep breath: Justin Timberlake, Axl Rose, Florida Georgia Line, Snoop Dogg, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Jennifer Hudson, Luke Bryant, Lil’ Wayne, CeeLo Green, Darius Rucker, Tommy Lee and Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister.
The loyalty of most all of the celebrities is incredible because to this day I get referred to people like Taylor Swift and Usher, who I’m not personally friends with, (by people) like Steven Tyler and kind of the old school. It’s a nice way to market my company,” Mitchell says.
He names two reasons why his jewelry works for performers and other celebs: 1. He makes large pieces that can show up onstage (including guitar straps), and 2. His Santa Monica store is not a paparazzi haven.
“I’m proudly on the last industrial street (in the city),” he says.
Other notable clients? Bikers. Lots and lots of them.
“I did their club rings and their vests and those kind of things. I used to make jewelry for one of the most notorious motorcycle gangs in the country (the Hells Angels). I don’t do that anymore, but I really lived off of the Japanese and the motorcycle community for probably my first three years.
“But it was a good range of customer. One was a 300-pound kind of hoodlum, and then on the other hand I was doing earrings for Elizabeth Taylor.”
After waking up in the middle of the night with an idea, sketching it and making sense of it the next morning, Mitchell will collect what he calls “inspiration photos” - images that “convey the tone, idea and feel of the piece or the collection I’m working on.”
He’ll cull his sketches down to the best designs. Then come final renderings, wax carvings, rubber molds and, finally, pouring the metal itself.
King Baby uses silver, gold, a gold/ brass alloy, “all kinds of gemstones,” leather and exotic skins including stingray and snakeskin.
Mitchell splits his time between Santa Monica and Nashville. He and his employees make and sell jewelry at his King Baby stores there. (He also has one King Baby shop in West Hollywood and one in Las Vegas.)
He said he fell in love with Nashville because it reminded him of the South, of Jackson. He calls his speaking voice “chameleon-like” depending on his whereabouts.
It’s probably true. This reporter hears nothing but a SoCal accent - until Mitchell says the following, and then the drawl appears:
“When I’m in Nashville, I think I sound like I’m from Nashville.”
Most recently, Mitchell has opened 15 stores in China, which he calls “a very, very significant part” of his business.
“I’m probably one of the only companies that exports handmade product to China instead of the other way around,” he says.
He’ll probably never really retire. “I’ll never live long enough to make all the things I want to make.”
Also, King Baby has turned into a family business. Mitchell’s son, brother and nephew all work for him.
“And it’s funny because we all grew up working at the Olde Tyme Delicatessen. None of us really wanted to go into that. And lo and behold, here we are doing (a family business) ourselves.”
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