The Charm Bracelet Shop That Keeps Going Viral

By August 2020, Tracie Campbell and Adrienne Nappi were ready to close the New York locations of their business Brooklyn Charm. After a decade of selling make-your-own beaded bracelets, necklaces and earrings for $35 to $75 on average out of a storefront in Williamsburg and a booth in Manhattan’s Chelsea Market, they came up against the Covid-19 pandemic. Foot traffic was down, and they were burnt out. They announced a closing sale on the store’s Instagram account.

Initially the sale drew about 10 people a day to their Brooklyn flagship. But after about a week, the shop was suddenly flooded with 5 to 10 times as many customers. As it turned out, Marc Sebastian, a model and stylist who counts almost 2 million followers on TikTok, had posted a video of his visit to the shop, where customers select charms that employees attach to chains. “They have every kind of bead, charm, shell, crystal etc you can think of,” he wrote in the video, which has had over 172,000 views and received nearly 50,000 likes. “If you’re in NYC, go support a small business affected by COVID!”