People, Places and Things: Chazerly Designs

Recently, of Downers Grove learned they have global appeal when one of their crystal sculptures of the Chicago skyline was chosen by the Chicago Fire soccer team this summer as a gift for visiting Premier League football club Manchester United.

After a representative for the Fire stumbled across a photo of the sculpture online she came out to Chazerly Designs to see the piece in person and ultimately bought it. The high profile transaction was the nudge owners Elias Akwo and his wife Chaz Nieoponski needed to bring their designs to the global marketplace. The experience spurred them to relaunch their website, making all of their unique and even one-of-a-kind pieces of art available to people virtually anywhere in the world.

“We were getting a lot of calls from customers who had been on our old website and had seen items they’d like,” said Akwo. “So we knew it was time for us to create a more convenient online store that customers could go on and safely purchase from.”

Chazerly Designs carries an eclectic array of items including crystal, ancient African artifacts, antique hand-woven rugs, handcrafted jewelry, and Nieoponski’s own paintings and prints. Over recent months, they’ve started offering complete lines of crystal from major manufacturers including Waterford, Nambe and Orrefors. Their enhanced website will help promote this aspect of their business as well.

“We don’t have the space to display a huge inventory from Waterford and the others,” Akwo said. So now, people can order online, any of the items from these major distributors.”

An advantage to ordering from Chazerly Designs, he added, is he specializes in very unique engraving.

“Engraving is really popular right now,” Akwo said.  “A lot of people try to buy gifts that are functional. It’s a regular gift but then we engrave it, and it becomes more of an heirloom.”

Recently, a customer came in wishing to engrave an entire Biblical saying on an Orrefors bowl, which Chazerly did, engraving the entire text along the rim of the bowl.

“It was stunning.” Akwo said. “This type of thing makes our shop unique.”  

While crystal from the major manufacturers is priced the same everywhere, Akwo said that Chazerly Designs frequently has promotional programs where they will offer engraving at greatly reduced rates for items purchased through Chazerly.

Chazerly Designs customers can also use their website to order infused glass, a technique Akwo uses to infuse digital photos onto a surface of ceramic or glass. Through the process, he explained, the photograph “actually becomes a part of the surface. It’s not painted or pasted on.”  Akwo said few artisans tackle photo infusion on glass because of the time and cost involved.

Akwo said the renovated website is very large, with as many as 20,000 items for sale. It's also, by careful design, very user-friendly. 

“We’re very proud of what we’re accomplishing with this site,” Akwo said. “We tried very hard to make it user friendly, and the feedback from people who have gone on the site has been really positive. They’ve said that it’s pleasant to visit and to shop,” he said.

Chazerly Designs is located at 5116 Main Street in Downers Grove.  For further information call 630-512-0400 or visit www.chazerlydesigns.com