- February 19, 2025
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Former Lakewood Ranch High student Kelsey Armstrong has come a long way from her days of selling jewelry and handmade cards to her high school classmates via an Etsy page.
Today, she is the owner of Haricot Vert, a jewelry company based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, whose fun, charm-like pieces have been featured in the New York Times and worn by the likes of supermodel Gigi Hadid and actress Emma Roberts.
Anyone who knew Armstrong growing up might not be too surprised by what she’s accomplished, but her path to success is one that’s been several years in the making.
Self-described as someone with an entrepreneurial spirit, Armstrong's first forays into sales included fruit baskets and lemonade in her backyard and Girl Scout cookies as a young child.
Now, the rest of the world is catching on to Armstrong’s creativity and salesmanship.
“I grew up in a middle-class family and I was always kind of a big dreamer,” Armstrong said. “Something now in my company that I always try to do is inspire other people to realize they have the ability to do the same thing.
“You just have to believe in yourself and you can make all of your dreams come true.”
Haricot Vert means ‘green bean’ in French, and French influence is evident Armstrong’s work — from the music her store plays down to the artistic inspiration for several pieces of the jewelry she sells.
That inspiration first struck at Lakewood Ranch High.
Armstrong, 28, said she initially enrolled in Latin classes in high school to prepare for the SAT, and she quickly became inspired by her teacher, Susan McDonald.
As Armstrong progressed in Latin, McDonald, who ran a French-exchange program at the time, needed more students to host French students. She reached out to Armstrong to see if she could recruit her to help.
“When I first met her, I don’t think she knew how gifted and how talented she was,” said McDonald, who has since retired from teaching after spending 14 years at Lakewood Ranch High. “I’m hoping that she’s realizing that now.”
Armstrong, who had lived in Hawaii, California and Nevada growing up, had experience hosting Korean exchange students at past stops, but this particular exchange program set her life on a new course.
The first of three French exchange students happened to be a boy, Enzo Le Fur, with whom Armstrong said she quickly fell in love.
“I became even more inspired because his English wasn’t so good, he was learning, and I thought we could learn together,” Armstrong said. “My dream after that was to go to France and to visit him and be with his family. So I kind of had a goal in mind. I could picture myself being in France and speaking it. My family laughs at me to this day because I became so obsessed with it.”
From then on, Armstrong said she made it a priority to spend at least 30 minutes a day after school learning the language.
Her mother, Charlette Armstrong, said she would often find her daughter on the lanai listening to French pronunciation guides. Armstrong’s friends would be bewildered when she wanted to watch movies in French.
“She would listen to (French pronunciation tapes) over and over and over at night to get the pronunciation down,” Charlette Armstrong said. “It was everything French after that.”
Before long, Armstrong was set to graduate from Lakewood Ranch High in 2014 and was making plans to attend a university in France.
The girl who grew up buying trinkets from Goodwill and taking clippings out of magazines in local bookstores in Sarasota found herself at the American University of Paris shortly after graduating from Lakewood Ranch High, unsure of what would come next.
Armstrong said her parents, who were hesitant about their young daughter moving to France, insisted that she major in business so that she could come away from her time there with a useful degree at the least.
That didn’t stick for long.
“I was kind of struggling at the more financial and accounting side of business,” Armstrong said. “So then I realized, ‘I don’t know if I am a business person,’ so I kind of talked myself out of it. This was at a time when I started realizing I was more of a creative person.”
Armstrong switched to marketing, which she credits for having a monumental influence in the growth of her brand.
After graduation, Armstrong moved to New York, ‘like a dummy,’ she said and had to hustle on the side as a French instructor on weeknights and as a nanny on weekends to make ends meet.
Eventually, she moved on from working at a French magazine to the French-American Chamber of Commerce that included a pay bump — freeing her of her side-hustle obligations.
It was then, leading into 2019, that Armstrong gave herself another goal.
“It was a New Year's resolution where I said, ‘This year, I’m going to focus on my artwork,’” Armstrong said. “I’m going to focus on the things that make me happy, and I’m going to prioritize that over my social life.’
“I made a pledge to myself. Any free time you have outside of work should be focused on that. Obviously rest is involved, but I’m a bit of a maniac. I’d work like 18-hour work days, and I still do.”
COVID-19 wound up changing everything for Armstrong.
Relegated to remote work at the time, Armstrong said she would typically finish work early and spend the rest of the day crafting her charms.
As the orders started stacking up, Armstrong soon ran out of room in her apartment. That led to her adding a studio, and eventually, her current store at 119 N. First St. in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Armstrong’s operation currently includes 20 employees who work out of a store with a cafe, a do-it-yourself charm station, offices that overlook the store and a basement for production.
The collage-themed art, described as "wearable poetry," allows customers to pick pre-made art, customize orders or create their own pieces in the store.
“It’s not a transactional vibe,” said Armstrong, who estimates that she receives roughly 100 custom orders a day. “When people come here, it’s supposed to be for them to stay for a little while, hang out, get creative, sit down. It’s a very creative space. The brand started from these little charms and has turned into this creative community. It’s so cool to see.”
For more information on Haricot Vert, visit HaricotVert.shop.