Sister Act: Intown siblings build thriving local businesses

By Collin Kelley
INtown Editor

The Davis sisters have built their businesses bead-by-bead and strand-by-strand. A close twosome, Andrea Goldklang is the owner of Belle de Jour Salon in Sandy Springs and Sabrina Davis is the owner of both Brina Beads and Range Boutique in Buckhead.

The Miami natives come from a family of entrepreneurs and business owners, so running their own small businesses is almost second nature. “We like the idea of not having to answer to anyone else and being our own bosses,” Sabrina laughed.

Brina Beads is celebrating 10 years in business, having successfully weathered the economic downturn, while Belle de Jour has been a hit since it opened two years ago.

“I actually started working part-time with Sabrina at the bead shop,” Andrea recalled. “Then I was working in a salon, but I knew I always wanted to open my own.”

A trust like no other was formed at an early age when then 12-year-old Andrea cut 6-year-old Sabrina’s hair into a Dorothy Hamill bob. From that moment on, and several years of formal training later in New York and Paris, Sabrina was always asking Andrea to make her look like the top supermodel of the moment.

Sabrina said she decided to open Brina Beads after stints working sales in Los Angeles and found herself coming back and forth to Atlanta to visit her sister. It was actually Andrea’s idea to open a bead store.

“There was a big trend 10 years ago of people making their own jewelry and you saw celebrities with all this great beaded jewelry,” Sabrina said. “And people still love to make their own jewelry.”

In 2007 Sabrina added clothing to the shop calling the new retail portion Range, offering pieces inspired by her time in California, or “West Coast cool” as she describes it. Sabrina said adding the clothing section to her shop helped the store survive the recession. “Instead of paying $40 or $50 for jewelry, they could come here and make it for $8. The clothing line actually helped increase the jewelry sales.”

Both sisters love having successful and unique businesses near each other and are regularly amazed at the crossover of their establishments. Andrea and Sabrina regularly refer their customers to each other’s businesses.

They sister are also huge supporters of giving back, especially after Andrea’s 8-year-old son, Nolan, battled leukemia. Local schools, CURE Childhood Cancer, Children’s Health Care of Atlanta, The Shepherd Center and Bert’s Big Adventure are some of the organizations the duo has supported over the years.

And even all these years later, Sabrina still loves getting styled by her older sis and Andrea can be found now and again teaching a beading class or two at Brina Beads.

Brina Beads and Range (brinabeads.com, rangeboutique.com) are located at 3231 Cains Hill Place, while Belle du Jour Salon (bdjsalon.com) is at 5290 Roswell Road.