The idea of Chippd Tooth was born in a Vancouver cafe back in January 2020, with its first launch released later in September. Now with three collections to shop from—Essential, Yorokobi, and Saint—Chippd Tooth is a small jewelry brand for trendsetting stainless steel chains, earrings, and more.
Creative outlets are not unknown for the couple and founders Kyle Yumang and Ricci Pamintuan. Ricci, 25, is a part of the YouTube duo, Tothe9s, a fashion and lifestyle channel with 620K subscribers; and Kyle, 24, makes music as Not Klyde for his 23K and counting monthly Spotify listeners to enjoy. Both talented, stylish, and creative, it’s only natural that they used their collective artistry to start a small business.
Chippd Tooth – kind of a funny name for a jewelry brand, but the name’s origin story is even funnier. Kyle (AKA Not Klyde) was performing on stage in LA—decked out in chains, no doubt. Performing means jumping around and hyping up the crowd, and as he was doing this, a heavy-duty chain that Ricci gave him bounced up and hit his tooth. For the rest of the set, Kyle was worried that the chain had given him a… chipped tooth.
And it did, but only the slightest bit.
Join SHEESH! in an interview with creators Kyle Yumang and Ricci Pamintuan about the meaning behind each collection, their goals for Chippd, and working together as a couple.
Were you guys always into jewelry?
Kyle: Since I started making music, I feel like jewelry became more important for your overall image. But now accessorizing is so important. It can literally take a basic outfit and elevate it and make it something completely different.
Ricci: Yeah, I agree. I don’t think I can leave the house without some chains.
All your pieces are unisex, what are your thoughts on the stigma or feminization around jewelry and accessorizing that some people have?
Kyle: I feel like that’s not as prevalent within hip hop culture, but I think outside of it there’s this thing where chains, jewelry, and accessories are seen as a girly thing. But especially now with how the fashion industry is making its turns, people are starting to realize that anyone can literally wear whatever they want to wear.
Who or what do you look to for inspiration?
Kyle: Other brands that are in our space. We have a friend who has a brand he started called UR, definitely inspo. Another brand, based out of Oklahoma—Lord Primo. Circle Author. Fear of God. Justin Bieber, surprisingly. He’s very hit or miss. Also those guys from the UK—PAQ, on YouTube. Especially Shaq. Shaq is dope, his style is so sick.
Ricci: Before starting YouTube, I really looked up to Jenn Im, who is now our friend. Instagram is also definitely the place where I find a lot of inspiration. And TikTok… I definitely think TikTok is killing it. You just scroll through there and you see a whole bunch of girls who are dressed really cool. And I’m just like, ‘Whoa, I need to get with it.’
What was the first design you guys made, and what goes into making a design a reality?
Kyle: I remember the first chain that I designed was this half-pearl, half-Miami Cuban chain and it had a Hello Kitty charm and a Dragonball Z charm—it’s still in my car, it never went anywhere. In terms of how we make these designs real and tangible—because we don’t have a warehouse, we’re not jewelers, we’re not in our garage sawing away, right? So it’s a lot of reaching out to different stores, different manufacturers, having a design in mind, sketching it out, and creating it on Photoshop. And then a lot of back and forth with the different materials used, all that kind of stuff.
Ricci: We mainly focused on stainless steel for our brand because with Kyle wearing jewelry a lot, we know how things can tarnish really quickly, especially when you sweat. We really wanted to make sure that all our pieces are affordable, but can also last in your wardrobe for a very long time.
Were there challenges you faced starting a business, or any lessons you’ve learned along the way?
Ricci: We got this idea in January and we wanted to take off right away, but then the pandemic hit and it slowed down the process of creating, in terms of manufacturing and going back and forth and stuff like that. It got us to pause for a little bit and reflect on what our brand really means. So we had this conversation where we didn’t want to put out pieces just to put out pieces. The biggest thing that we stood for, as we were reflecting on this brand, is that we wanted each piece to have a message. If anything, that’s what we wanted to set us apart from other brands – each piece starts with a concept. For example, our very first drop [Essential], was about simplicity. We spoke on the idea of going back to simplicity in your own life. We have that clear link chain that a lot of people love, and with that we put a card in every package that talked about transparency, vulnerability, and allowing yourself to be open to who you are and not feel the need to hide behind a lot of walls and whatnot.
Kyle: Each piece is definitely thoughtfully created and meaningful, in hopes that you’re not just buying jewelry, you’re not just wearing a chain, but you’re actually stepping into a different mindset. It’s been a good response, because we don’t really advertise that part of it. It’s not like, ‘Oh hey, every chain you buy, every piece you get is gonna have a meaningful message!’—you don’t say that. But it’s a nice little easter egg, and people do love that.
How did you come up with the themes for the other two collections, Yorokobi and Saint?
Kyle: I love anime, and I’ve always wanted to wear anime jewelry, but I’ve never found nice ones that I would wear. But we were able to find manufacturers that made anime pendants. And so I’m like, ‘Yo, I think this is the next collection.’ And Ricci was like, ‘Oh, I think we gotta take it easy for now. It’s super niche; anime is huge, it’s a big culture but this is gonna be the first real collection outside of the basic chains. Is that the statement you want to make?’ And I was like, ‘Don’t even worry about it. This is the vibe.’ And that was fun, content creating for that was so fun.
Kyle: And after that was the Saint collection, where it was just a lot of pearls. I just really wanted guys to know that it’s OK, you can wear pearls and it’ll be fire. Trust me. That was my side of the next two collections.
Ricci: Yeah, we definitely went back and forth for the Yorokobi collection. Yorokobi actually means joy. We spoke on joy, especially during the pandemic. We know that a lot of things were taken away, and we felt like joy was the one thing that we had to keep in our hearts, despite what’s happening around us. It’s a very joyful and youthful vibe. Saint was all about identity, because we are Christians and we believe that our identity is in Christ, so we wanted to give out that message—to not allow things like social media to define who you are as a person. Because I think very easily we can look to people, social media, big influencers and compare ourselves to them. But [Saint] speaks on what identity means and where it should be anchored on—it shouldn’t be on people or circumstances.
Kyle: Yeah, that was pretty big. With that collection, which was so important for us, we wanted people to realize that literally no one, no trend, no app, no organized religion can dictate who you are.
Do you guys have specific goals for Chippd Tooth and where you want it to go?
Ricci: We want to create a vending machine, which is why our packaging is very much playful and like something you’d pull out of a vending machine. That’s a big goal, where we could have a vending machine in every mall in America. Just that user experience of someone going through all our jewelry on this display at a mall to intrigue people, like ‘what is this jewelry brand doing?’ It’s so unconventional.
Kyle: A big inspo for that was Japan—they’re huge on vending machines. You can buy whole meals, hot and ready, you can buy phones, you can buy literally anything. And there are these certain types of vending machines called Gacha. And it’s not built like an American or Canadian vending machine, where it’s like ‘C4’ and the little thing rolls out, but it’s designed to look a certain way, maybe to look like a character or whatever. So we’re thinking—you never see any jewelry company living within vending machines, you know? How crazy would it be if there was a Gacha style vending machine in every mall in America with Chippd Tooth jewelry—and it’s real jewelry.
Ricci: Another goal we have is the traditional pop-up where we can conceptualize the space itself and have people experience it, instead of just being on e-commerce and selling our stuff online. We eventually want to create that gallery-type vibe of selling jewelry to display our work tangibly. That’s a big dream, for sure. Obviously, after everything’s good.
Being a couple, would you say that has helped in this process, or perhaps made things a bit more challenging? What’s your dynamic as business partners?
Kyle: It was definitely a lot easier because we were able to be on the same page with a lot of things, and with things that maybe we weren’t on the same page with initially, we were able to work through them in a smart and healthy way because we know how to maneuver through things we have disagreements on as a couple. So that transferred over quickly. I know people say you shouldn’t mix relationships with business, but I haven’t really seen it be a problem for Chippd Tooth. So far, at least. It’s just been fun. It’s the equivalent of kids drawing with crayon on a piece of paper, literally free to make anything you want to make and see it in front of you. That’s what Chippd Tooth feels like—whatever we can dream up or imagine and it becomes a reality. It’s been this long, fun playtime.
Ricci: Our dynamic as business partners… Well, a day in the life of Kyle and Ricci would look like going to WeWork because that’s where our office is and we would assemble the pieces, or I would assemble the pieces, or we’d take turns. We both do everything from branding, conceptualizing, creating, curating, photographing models and product shots, editing graphics, sending out emails, working on the website, packaging orders (with the help of our 2 friends) for all our drops from our little space at WeWork! We definitely want to grow our team and delegate some of these tasks, but for now since we have lots of time on our hands, we really enjoy the whole process from start to finish! And I think the balance between us as partners is really cool.
Could you say or give a hint of what your next collection will be?
Kyle: I guess a hint for our next collection is…love. Valentine’s Day…
Shop Chippd Tooth and stay tuned on Instagram for new releases!
