Chantel Leavitt: Entrepreneurial Femininity with Guts and Passion
The road to success is never smooth. Rather its a long and windy road with unexpected twists and turns around every corner, littered with potholes all the way to the end. An exceptional amount of fortitude is necessary to pour your heart and soul into a business that is male dominated and tribal. Having to start from scratch and work your way into a tight knit community to give your fledgling idea a chance to grow wings and fly. After several bad beats and a lot of heartache and pain, for Chantel Leavitt there was only one way, the Bella Dama way.
Chantel grew up in an era where cocktail casual was all class. Her father was a professional poker player and exuded this atmosphere with his cards in one hand, and a cigar in the other. Always calm under pressure. He never allowed anyone, aside from his daughter, to see him without his poker face. In the card rooms, Chantel witnessed firsthand, women in evening dresses and men in tuxedos. Chantel’s young life had become a Todd White painting in person and in living color. That martini style of art where the women are dressed to impress, and the men are calm and cool.
This mark that was left on Chantel by her father, never left. As she matriculated through her life, class and femininity were always two characteristics that anchored the sometimes chaotic atmosphere of her surroundings. After Chantel’s father left this world on his own terms, there was always a special, silent memorial inside her heart, which kept him close.
Life waits for no one, and Chantel found herself in the fashion industry ready to make her own mark. Having gotten married, and now with a daughter, her surroundings had changed, but the core values that her father instilled upon her never left. Life threw Chantel a curveball as life usually does, and her marriage dissolved, leaving her a single mother.
Everything became very difficult for Chantel. Now being responsible for this beautiful young lady, attempting to raise her with the same idea of class and femininity that she was brought up with. The overwhelming responsibility was a weight that she had to bear. Trying several different industries, but always gravitating back towards the fashion industry, in 2020 the state of affairs across the world caused her business to crash as Covid lockdown had begun.
Chantel always wanted to pay homage to her father mystique, but could never find the right time to do it. Now, with no job and a bleak looking future, her entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and compelled her to go into the cigar industry. Her father‘s love for cigars while sitting at a poker table was embossed into her mind, Chantel had to put her own specific twist into this branding by injecting femininity. “ Why can’t women enjoy cigars as much as men?” Chantel had been a cigar smoker for the better part of her adult life, still maintaining that same class and femininity she learned so long ago.
Her idea was to create a network of hosts for events, who were feminine, that would bring an extra added element to cigar parties, and the cigar community. This fantastic idea seemed to have legs, except for one hiccup, social gatherings across the world had been extremely limited due to the lockdown protocols that affected every corner of the globe. Everyone was staying home and looking for entertainment. The concept of Bella Dama Cigars was born.
The world of cigars is a highly male dominated industry. How often do you see a female walking down the street holding or smoking a cigar? In fact, Chantel is only one of a handful of female owned cigar companies in the United State. Cigars are marketed towards a male audiences because they make up the majority of those that consume. Chantel chose to change that maxim. It makes perfect sense in a time when the battle for spouses to spend time with one another that they would naturally try to enjoy the other’s pleasures.
Chantel hit the ground running and finally found A company to make exclusive hand rolled cigars. Bella Dama now produces the finest premium cigars in the United States. As a further homage to her fathers lifestyle, Chantel chose to name each cigar after a characteristic of poker. Bella Dama Cigars seems to be a love letter to a man who Chantel admired more than she could describe.
Chantel says , “I have always enjoyed the taste and smell of cigars so that for me is a no brainer. More than anything the comradery. Being involved in the Cigar community has rewards every day as it is the most amazing community of people I have ever had the privilege to encounter that do so much for their fellow human beings. Doesn’t matter if you are the janitor or the CEO, we all ‘break bread’ together and treat each other with dignity and respect. It is an unspoken code like no other.”
Being the owner of a small business, while attempting to put a young lady through college is not without its trials. Chantel handles all of these responsibilities and more exhibiting the same lessons learned so long ago in the card rooms where her father played. Chantel does things the Bella Dama way, always classy, always feminine, always premium, and always with passion.
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