Ana Pinto grew up in Paraná, Brazil. Both of her parents were high school teachers 
. At twenty, she graduated in Physical Education and, following in her parents’ footsteps, became a high school teacher. However, she always had the entrepreneurial spirit within her, so she opened her own gym where she taught dance to children and fitness classes for adults.
Ana says: “It was a very successful business, but the town was too small for my dreams, so I decided to sell everything and open a bigger gym in a big city, but before my city dream came true, I decided to come to the U.S. to get my Pilates certification, as it was not offered in Brazil.”
Ana enrolled in an English school in New York. She was eager to improve her English and juggled three jobs to support herself. She worked as a waitress, babysitter, and fit model for a clothing design company. 
After a few months working as a fit model, she began working as a fashion design assistant for the same company, creating line sheets, fashion concept boards, and embroidery layouts.
“I literally fell in love with the fashion industry, and two years later, I went back to Brazil to visit my family and was convinced to stay forever, but I was sure I definitely needed to return to the U.S.,” Ana states.
So she decided to return to the U.S. and obtained her Associate’s degree in Fashion at FIT. While studying in New York, she worked as a babysitter in New Jersey. She decided to specialize in children’s clothing. At the end of her specialization in Children’s Clothing, she received the Critical Award for the best 
children’s clothing designer of the year and was invited to work for a children’s clothing company in New York.
After having her two lovely boys, she decided to start a kids’ t-shirt company called Groovy by Nature. Her goal was to create cool and embellished t-shirts for kids. She found a great manufacturer in Los Angeles, CA, and bought fabric to produce the first 800 t-shirts, but had to pause the project due to complications in her marriage.
Since Groovy by Nature was already registered and open, she soon decided to design jewelry on her own and work from home. Ana then shares the story of how her new project came to life.
“While working on a bracelet, I accidentally cut it too short. It barely fit on a baby’s arm, and an idea came to me, so I decided to put it around my scarf and loved the look! My son Matteo, who was seven at the time, saw me wearing the short bracelet on the scarf and said, ‘Mom, millions of people are going to buy this from you.’ Right then, I decided to make nine more 
pieces and sell them at my next jewelry show as my new design ‘The Scarf Lock.’”
Ana recounts how customers saw her wearing a Scarf Lock and loved it. She sold the few she had in the blink of an eye. Ana was so excited about her new invention that she decided to turn all the t-shirt fabric she had bought into scarves to sell along with the Scarf Locks. With her mother’s help, over 300 scarves were cut and sewn, and more than 600 Scarf Locks were made in fifteen days!
“I still remember going to bed at 11 PM and waking up at 2:30 AM to get to Hartford, Connecticut, by 6 AM to sell my products. I wasn’t making much 
money at the time, but I felt very successful and saw the potential in my innovation,” Ana says.
With the money earned through hard work, she saved enough to apply for a patent in the U.S. This year, Ana opened the Lock & Shine Company to primarily launch the Scarf Lock. Additionally, the Scarf Lock is now available on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform. The Scarf Lock is truly a new innovation for the fashion industry. It is a modern, unique, and practical fashion accessory.
“My vision is for it to become a new fashion category,” Ana says. There is 
nothing like it on the market; it solves the problem of keeping a scarf in place while bringing a new look to the scarf. “Creating and launching a new product is not the easiest task. Moreover, getting good online exposure for a product is very difficult, especially when everything in business revolves around algorithms. Launching the product on Kickstarter is helping me gain more exposure, and with my friends and family being the first buyers/supporters, spreading the word, their support is invaluable!” she adds.
If you want to know more and see all the Scarf Lock designs, visit www.lockandshine.com
Also on Instagram: Lock.and.shine www.instagram.com/lock.and.shine/ and on Facebook: Lockandshine https://business.facebook.com/lockandshine