Leading Wholesale Supplier of Fashion Jewelry since 1986

About Us



The story of how `ZAD began tells a lot about who the company is today. In 1986, a husband and wife team, Ralph and Kebi Brown, moved to Santa Barbara after some years spent doing volunteer work for a charitable organization in Meherazad, a tiny town in India. Fresh from this experience, they named their new enterprise `ZAD (pronounced zod) and began selling the jewelry they had admired while living overseas.

Starting out as a two-person team from a home base of their garage, Kebi and Ralph added employees, warehouse space and business knowledge as they went along. `ZAD's first catalogs were pages of products sketched by hand. Invoices were generated on an electric typewriter and the person who answered the phone also packed your order, oversaw the inventory, and swept the floors!

`ZAD has grown from these simple roots but the fundamental vision remains the same; the creation of a business where providing a good product goes hand in hand with providing an environment where employees enjoy coming to work. In 2012, Ralph and Kebi sold the business to their employee of 17 years, Stan Betters, and his wife Jennifer. Stan and Jennifer continue to uphold the core values that Ralph and Kebi began in 1986, while adding new energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to `ZAD’s valued customers and employees.

Today, we exist as `ZAD Fashion, Inc. We count among our customers some of the biggest retail chains in the country, national museums, mail order catalogs and gift stores as well as many privately owned boutiques, which started buying with us in the very beginning. Known throughout the industry as a leader in jewelry trends which provides outstanding customer service, `ZAD thrives by working daily to uphold our mission statement:


`ZAD delivers trend driven jewelry at a great
price, where valued employees provide
our customers with unrivaled service.