Welcome to another episode of our serious S&T Meetups by Superlux Review, where we connect with some of the most interesting players in the luxury market. My name is Alvaro and today will be having with us a very special guest. Her name is Orian Collins and she is the CEO and founder of OLC-Jurley, founder of the Never Give Up Foundation and co-founder and chairman of the Little Drinks Foundation. Orian will be sharing with us her journey as a businesswoman and how she overcame her challenges while making an international impact.
She will be giving us insights on how she took over the fine-jurley industry in Miami and expanded her product line to cater beauty and wellness. In an inspiring conversation where Orian shares her passionate knowledge to enlighten us with her story. I hope you enjoy. Hi!
Oyaan, how are you? I'm good and you? Very good, very good. Happy Friday to you too.
Oh my God, you're looking phenomenal. Thank you. Where are you right now? I'm at home.
Well, it's a good place to be at this age with what is going on, but we're the lucky ones here in Miami, so we get to enjoy the freedom. Well, I like to make a quick introduction about yourself. I was saying that besides being the designer and founder of Orian Collins-Jurley, you are also the president of the Little Dreams Foundation, which we're going to attach based on that because I found it phenomenal how you're helping kids with sports, arts and how they're getting all this support to get into Americans' Gotalian, Dices and Golden Bossers. Yes.
And there's a lot of things that you've been doing and also Black, Welfare, Dan. I think that you're a very incredible woman. I'm very happy to have you here today. So welcome.
Thank you very much. Yeah, I mean, I've been doing the Little Dreams Foundation for the last 21 years. So we have a lot of children all around the world and we have two academies, soccer academy and one academy in Morocco and one in Zimbabwe. So we're helping kids there, but during the pandemic, it was harder because they needed help with food, with drinks, with the essentials.
It was very hard for them to have medicine, to have everything. So we found ways a lot during the pandemic to send them money so they were able to buy some food and some water and essentially. Wow. And so tell us a little bit about the company.
I created the company in 2007 because I was working for different houses, me as on the sorority, like Vancouver, like Cartier and I was designing some pieces for the Little Dream Foundation. So we were selling in favor of Little Dreams. I was working for different companies and I created all the jewelry for Beda Inco, which is a Swiss watchmaker. And I saw to myself, you know, I should do it for me because I wanted to do it on my own.
I have all the cosmetics now that I made with the pressure stones. See that you started expanding to OC home, also to the OC SPAC collection and now they are OC Cosmetics. So it's definitely a great brand that you're expanding towards where they're really needed. But we have the experience for the couple.
So we have a couple massage, you know, in the spa, we have the full experience. Let me ask you, in other words, why is it really luxury to you? Well, I mean luxury for me, it's something that you can't buy, you know. It's something like it's an experience that you will live through it, you know.
It's something that it's untouchable, but it's there, you know, luxury is a lifestyle, I would say. I wanted to ask you because obviously with everything that we've been facing with the pandemic and the adjustments that we have been doing, how have you leveraged your business? What we did is we put our business on e-commerce. That was the solution and we're working with two different agencies, one in London and one in Las Vegas.
So they're taking care of all our PR user, a lot of influencers now. We want them to come and have the experience, you know, at the boutique and then, you know, at the spa and everything so they could talk about it. The fact that you use also, you know, different people like influencers that could talk about their experience that's good, you know, say, okay, you know, I did that. I felt this, you know.
I want to bring you a few. I want to bring you a few next week. So they're going to love it. I think it's going to be a great collaboration there.
Besides that, what you have to share with the world is so fascinating because not just professionally, but also on a personal level. I know you've been facing some difficulties, not just the pandemic, but on a personal level with injuries because you were a black belt. They're done, right? So I mean, I had a very, very bad accident five years ago.
I, because I was boxing, I was doing an exhibition in Paris against the first student of Bruce Lee and he was showing, you know, Kung Fu, I was sure. Jesse Glover, right? Jesse Glover. And, you know, during the exhibition, I don't know for some reason, he gave me a real punch and I heard my neck go crack, you know, and then after the exhibition, my right arm was totally numb.
I could not move it. So for months and months, you know, I could not move my arm. I was in pain and it was terrible. So my surgeon said, well, we should put a cage in your neck to release the nerves.
So you know, you will have back your arm, you know, and he said, it's a very simple operation and, you know, it will take a week and then you could fight back to America. So I flew down to Switzerland to have the operation and the operation was supposed to take, you know, a few hours, but to take a long time. I came in the morning at nine and I came up in the afternoon at four and I asked the nurse, I said, can you pass me the phone because I like to call my mom and she passed me the phone and I say to my mom, I can't feel my leg. I can't feel my arm.
I can't feel anything. And there is like a panic, you know, in the room and then they put me back into the MRI and they discovered that they cut my spinal cord. So I went back to my room. The doctor, the professor came in my room and they say he will never walk again.
So I was like, oh my God, you know, my world just fell down in one split second, you know, everything was fine from one day to the other and then it was a nightmare. So I was there in the hospital and you know, in Switzerland, you have the right to go, you know, if you, you know, so I was thinking to myself, you know, I'm not going to be a vegetable for my kids, you know, I mean, they're trying to see me and totally paralyzing the bed. It's horrible for them. So, you know, I had all these sorts in my mind.
I didn't know what to do and everything. And then one day I had my little toe who started to move and I saw to myself, okay, if this one move, I'm going to make everything else move. So I had to go through a battle against myself because it's like a computer that broke down, you know, and so you have everything in the brain, but nothing goes down, you know, nothing, nothing goes in your body, you know, so you have to relearn everything. So I had to relearn how to dress up, to watch myself, to cook, to drive, to swim, to do everything.
I had to relearn everything. Wow. And step by step, you know, I'm doing a lot of therapy every day. I do five hours of therapy every day, you know, there are two to keep up walking and keep what I gain, you know, but I will never be back to 100% like I used to be.
And on top of that, you have three songs, a business running, like all of this is, you know, right a few years ago. So the way that you overcame this situation and really made it to an opportunity to continue growing and inspiring in other women and other individuals, I find it fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. And this is a great story by the way, to sharing in clubhouse.
Have you heard of this app? No, I never heard of that. Like this new hot platform where everybody goes in there into rooms and shares some topics, you know, and in this case, you can bring some great topics about empowerment, inspiration, business growth. My accident I created a foundation called Ever Give Up is to help people with spinal cord injuries because, you know, in the first three first months is the most important.
And imagine if, you know, you're the family supporter and it happened to you who's going to bring the money to the family, you know, to pay your electricity bill, to pay for your food, to pay for your kids to go to school and everything. So, and for your treatments, you know, if you don't have any income, you know, how you're going to do that. And before the insurance clicks in, you know, three months later, you have to do something about it. So during this period, we take care of all the bills for everybody and we give them the best treatments in order to come back, you know, because it's really the three first months that is the most important.
I mean, if I had the chance to have, you know, foundation like that, when I had my accident, I would have, you know, be much better, quicker because I spent two years and a half in a wheelchair, you know, I was two years and a half in a wheelchair and then I was working with two stakes, then with one stake and now I can walk, you know, on my own. But it took so long, you know, and, you know, where I go to the future therapy sensor every day, you know, I had lots of my friends that are still in the wheelchair, you know, but I became their inspiration. You know, I helped them and we did the 5K this year, you know, where I was pushing one of my, my friend in the wheelchair and we did the 5K together and it was the spirit of Never Give Up, you know, and I think it's super important that, you know, there's whatever you do, whatever you do in life, you know, whatever you have objects in life, I think, you know, if you have this in your brain, never give up, I think you will succeed at everything you try to do, you know, and I think it's very important. That's great.
Now, thank you for sharing definitely an inspiration for everybody listening today. Now, do you have any books or anything that inspires you or that have helped you throughout the journey? I wrote a book myself about women in martial arts, actually, it's in French, but I was translated in English because I think it's very interesting, is for women to choose the white martial arts. Crazy, I had my second son and I say, okay, I put on 17.5 kilo during my pregnancy, so I say, okay, I'm gonna make a bet that, so my son was born on the 1st of December and on the 3rd of March, we had a gala for the local foundation.
So I thought, okay, I'm gonna lose 17.5 kilos, or the third of March breastfeeding my kid, you know, so we went to the battle of diet and everything, exercise, diet, exercise, everything. So the day of the 3rd of March, I put myself on the scale and guess what? I lost it. I did.
I did. I did. I did. I did.
I did. I did. I did. I did.
I did. I did. I did. This is a takeaway that you can share with the audience on an inspirational level, what would it be.
Well, I think that's, like I said before, the most important thing is like when you have a project or you have, you know, a business ID or something like you want to achieve, you know, you have to focus, you know, stay focused on, on what you want to do and work hard at it because, you know, success doesn't arrive from one day to the other. It's a lot of work. Love it. Love it.
I love it. I love it. Yeah, this is great. I think we touched base on everything.
And this is great. But if you want to share something else, go ahead. that people have each other. And I think we're missing this nowadays.
We need to have more respect for each other. I do appreciate your time, Ariane. This is great. And definitely we'll connect next week to do some things together.
If everybody could please follow Ariane Collins on social media and to check out her website also about the digital re-faldation and everything that she's doing, please do so because it's phenomenal. I love your work. Keep doing the same thing. Looking forward to see where this can take.
Thank you. Thank you very much. And have a great weekend. All right.
Bye, Ariane. Take care. And thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it.
And remember, embrace its beautiful success in life. My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.