Catching the industry's eye

“I've been contacted by Anthropolgie, Henri Bendel's in New York and Hallmark,” Zurcher says. “They're checking us out, saying ‘We're watching you to see what your designers are doing.'” Media fashionistas are standing at attention, too, as both shopscadonline.com and the Atlanta store have been highlighted in publications from Vogue to Lucky to Southern Living, as well as Martha Stewart's new magazine, Blue Print. The domestic maven even listed shopSCAD one of her top 100 favorite Web sites to visit.  

Zurcher's secret? “We're willing to take more risks,” she says. “Other stores have an influx of mass-produced market items every few months, but we get limited edition items every single week—the byproduct of the artists' class creations.” Two of her biggest sellers are paintings and jewelry. “We excel in those because both are on the cutting edge of art and fashion.”

The upside, of course, is that while the word artist is usually connotative of starving, shopSCAD is positioning its artists to expand their reach (as well as their financial well-being). Faculty member Pamela Wiley recently sold her pillow designs to Anthropologie. And soon after carrying Claire Sanchez's handbags in the store, her wares were featured in Vogue. “Today, the Sanchez name is popping up all over the country,” Zurcher says.    

Which is all the reward Zurcher needs: “I love working with artists and I love watching an uncertain student gain confidence in a piece they weren't sure of,” she says. “To see that come to fruition—well, it's incredible.”