Meet The 25-Year-Old Founder Of Emi Jay, Who Launched The Hair Accessory Empire 12 Years Ago

Meet The 25-Year-Old Founder Of Emi Jay, Who Launched The Hair Accessory Empire 12 Years Ago

When Julianne Goldmark launched what is now known as the sought-after hair accessory brand with celebrity clout, Emi Jay, at age 14 (yes, you read this correctly!), it was a different era. The year was 2009, so Instagram didn't exist yet—the only "likes" we knew of were those captured on Facebook—and celebrity-focused fashion magazines were still highly relevant and very much in circulation. While the worlds of fashion and accessories leverage social media and the influencer "halo" effect in order to help with branding and virality, Emi Jay's trending hair accessories have not only stood the test of time—they have maintained "It factor" status, 12 years later. So what compelled Goldmark to launch the brand? It started as a way to express herself while in the 8th grade. "As a teenager, I grew up with a school uniform, and the only way to really accessorize and self-express was through hair and jewelry," Goldmark explains. "All of the hair accessories I fell in love with were way out of my 14-year-old budget, so I would spend hours in Downtown Los Angeles with my mom pulling all kinds of materials to make my own hair accessories, which I eventually sold to my