Nicole Tocci offers Chanel button pendants with thin silver and old chains. (Image credit: onevintagebutton.com)
It was in 2016 that Nicole Tocci carefully removed the buttons off her vintage Chanel clothing, polished them for about three hours, added a hook and attached them to thin silver and gold chains.
Today, the 45-year-old earns $39,000 a month from selling the button jewellery. She spends about 20 hours a week making the button pendants and what's more, this isn't even Tocci's primary source of income.
Tocci owns a tanning salon in New Jersey and had started selling the Chanel pendant necklaces at the salon and at pop-up events. As the popularity of the jewellery increased, she built a standalone website One Vintage Button in 2020 and made $90,000 in its first year of business, CNBC reported.
Speaking about the inspiration behind the vintage button pendants, Tocci stated in her website that a few years ago, she spotted that shorts made from old Levi’s jeans were popping up on the Instagram accounts of social influencers. The shorts heralded a trend toward taking older fashion items and repurposing them, giving them new life while capturing what made them special in the first place.
“That got me thinking about one of my favorite classic fashion logos – Chanel. It’s so simple but evokes so much. There’s an elegance and beauty to it. It is timeless," she stated.
She owned a few Chanel pieces which were worn, but she loved their look and wasn't willing to part with it– especially the buttons with the Chanel logo. Then, it dawned on her that buttons would be perfect centerpieces for necklaces that would appeal to consumers who wanted repurposed, or upcycled, jewellery.
Some of the Chanel button jewellery available on the One Vitage Button website. (Image credit: onevintagebutton.com)
This year, Tocci has already made $351,900 selling repurposed button necklaces. That is equivalent to more than $39,000 per month.
“Sometimes, your intuition is dead-on right,” Tocci told CNBC Make It. “I started testing the necklaces at my boutique and gathering feedback from high-end clientele. I knew immediately that they were a winner.”
She added that launching the side hustle cost about $40,000, with a major portion spent in sourcing Chanel clothing with unique buttons.
That still remains the most difficult part of the job Tocci told the publication. Each piece of clothing she buys can cost anywhere from $400 to $1,500, and she needs approximately 40 to 50 buttons every quarter.
One Vintage Button, however, is a one-woman operation, and Tocci said she wants to keep it that way.
“Sometimes you just have that physical vision of what your business is going to be,” she says. “I’m sure most entrepreneurs would agree: That moment where you can visualize the product — what it looks like, who’s buying it — you know you have something special,” she told CNBC.