STUDS’ Harvard Square Location Sees Slow Business After August Opening

STUDS, a national piercing and jewelry chain, recently opened its newest branch in Harvard Square, hoping to pierce the area’s student market.

According to the company’s social media, STUDS offers needle ear piercings and “high-quality” jewelry. The opening of the Harvard Square store marks the company’s fourth Massachusetts location, joining stores in Back Bay, Seaport, and Chestnut Hill.

The new studio, located at One Brattle Square, opened on Aug. 24. But according to Brianna C. Wright, the store’s assistant manager, the location has not gotten the traction they expected.

“Business has been pretty okay. Definitely not what we expected it to be,” Wright said. “We thought that we would be hitting it straight out the gate – super busy. It’s fairly quiet here.”

Wright said the store’s location may contribute to the slow business.

“Our neighboring stores, they told us that we’re kind of in a more hidden part of the Square,” she said.

One Brattle Square is the former home of Spyce, a robotic-powered restaurant that shuttered in 2022. Van Leeuwen Ice Cream is set to open there in the near future.

STUDS Co-Founder Anna S. Harman said the company was born as a solution to a problem she encountered in her 30s.

“Where do you go, if you’re me — and I was probably 34 at the time I was doing this — and you want to get another piercing, but you obviously have outgrown Claire's and some of the other mall brands,” Harman said. “The answer was nowhere, and so that is how STUDS was born.”

Harman said while the company serves customers as young as 13, their “core audience” is ages 18 to 35.

“For me, Harvard Square epitomizes that demographic,” she said.

According to Harman, STUDS hopes to attract more students to their location by offering a 10 percent student discount.

“Your parents can’t say anything to you about getting piercings. You should go live your life,” Harman said.

STUDS emphasized that it uses needles for piercings rather than piercing guns, advertising on Instagram that they “only pierce with single-use piercing needles and implant-grade piercing jewelry (with titanium posts) for better precision, safety, and healing.”

Jess E. Perez, a senior piercer at the Harvard Square location, said Cambridge regulations have added hurdles to the process, including requiring exams for piercers.

“Boston is definitely the Wild West when it comes to piercings. Literally, you can really do anything in Boston, but here, you have to have certain criterias,” she said. “I had basically an expedited version of an eight-week course for skin and anatomy.”

Wright, who previously worked at the Back Bay location, said some students still go to other locations in Boston despite the new opening in Cambridge.

“But we’re here. We’re open,” she said. “Please come to us.”

Corrections: October 26, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the piercing company in its headline as STUDS Piercing. In fact, the company is named STUDS.

A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of STUDS Co-Founder Anna S. Harman.