"I didn't want to have anything to do with the memory of what was supposed to be a grand event in my life."
Jill Donovan sat in her office, telling us what it was like to be called "tacky" while sitting next to Oprah Winfrey in 2004 with more than 20 million people watching at home.
She originally appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about her "regifting" habit with the nation's most popular TV host. Unbeknown to her, a team of etiquette experts were on set. There, they told Donovan that her habits were tacky and she should stop.
When she arrived back to her Tulsa home, embarrassed and hurt, Donovan cleaned out her gift closet and hoped the ordeal would become a thing of the past.
"A couple hours later after the show aired," Donovan remembered, "I said to my husband I don't know what this means but I know that someday this is going to have a purpose in my life."
Seven years later Donovan would be sitting down watching a TV show about do it yourself projects. Donovan said she'd never tried making cuffs before then, but would later "become obsessed with it."
That obsession led to Rustic Cuff, 175 employees, two retail stores and an army of loyal customers. The Rustic Cuff sensation took Tulsa, and the nation, by storm.
"I never asked for it. I didn't know that was going to happen," Donovan said.
If the success wasn't enough, Donovan's national failure would come full circle in March of 2015. This issue of O, the Oprah Magazine, would hit the shelves with Oprah on the cover sporting a yellow sweater, multi colored skirt and if you look closely enough: a Rustic Cuff.
Don't miss our March 2015 issue, on newsstands Tuesday, 2/17!
Posted by O, The Oprah Magazine on Tuesday, February 10, 2015
"It was a cuff I had given to Gail King her best friend who then I assume regifted it to Oprah," Donovan said.
Rustic Cuff encourages people to not purchase their first cuff for themselves, but instead, have it gifted to them by another.
The "tacky" regifting that started Donovan on her journey is finally able to find that purpose in Rustic Cuff.
Here are just a few well-known people across the nation sporting a cuff.
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