Shari Dionne was started by Will Nickens Jr. and Shari Dionne. The brand story started out as a love story when Will and Shari began dating in January of 2018. Will, a Cleveland, OH native at the time resided in Dallas and Shari born and raised in the Greater Los Angeles area met in Dallas. The weekend fling turned into the real thing. The couple is now married and expecting their 2nd child in 2022. The Nickens now reside in Los Angeles and have started a luxury eyewear brand. While dating long distance they spent many weekends on the road from Dallas to LA and LA to Dallas. To keep things fresh they would travel to other states and countries for dates from New Orleans and Miami, to Cancun, Cabo, and Puerto Rico. Everywhere they went people would compliment Shari’s style. But it was just something about her swagger when she wore eyewear that made people compliment her even more. So the couple decided to start their own luxury eyewear brand so others could experience that same since of confidence and compliments on their vacations or just through their everyday walks of life. At the same time they wanted people to be able to protect their eyes from UV light in a fashionable way. After a year into their relationship the Shari Dionne brand was born. It is now more than eyewear as they have added a luxury swimsuit line to their arsenal. Their glasses have been spotted on celebrities such as Brandi Maxiell from VH1’s Basketball Wives, Former women’s NCAA standout basketball twins, the Gonzalez twins, reality TV star Yasmine Lopez, “Yummy”, from Zeus network TV show “One Mo Chance, and the original face of the Clubhouse app Bomani X.” Their eyewear can be found in Downtown LA at a store called Raised In LA.  You can recognize their eyewear because of the trademarked winged logo on their lenses. So remember one thing, if it doesn’t have the wing it ain’t the real thing!

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Q. How did you both meet?

Will and I met in Dallas. I was visiting for my first time with my best friend. He was a promoter so he showed my friend and I around the first night. We hit it off and ended up hanging out the rest of the weekend. But he lived in Dallas and I lived in Cali. I'm not one for long distance relationships. However, there was something about him that made me take a chance. - Shari

Q. Was it love at first sight?

I’ll just say this, Shari has always been saved in my phone as Mrs. Shari Dionne Nickens. - Will

Q. What made you both want to go into business together?

We both love to travel so along the course of our relationship we would meet In different places. It was during those times that we were traveling, mainly to tropical places, that I was stopped by people complimenting my eyewear. Will had proposed that I start my own eyewear business since I received so many compliments on my eyewear selection. But at that time It wasn’t something I really took seriously. It was about a year later he ended up getting a job in Cali and moved out with me. It was then that the idea of starting the eyewear business crept back up and with Will being the business Mogul that he is, we started it right away. And haven’t looked back since. 

Q. How has it been working as a power couple?

I think people love to support love and people genuinely love our story. We have both been successful at our careers prior to starting this business together. It is sometimes difficult working with your partner because you have to find the balance between business and relationship. However, is also exciting to build something big together and be mentioned as a power couple!