About
Michelle Lomelin, founder of Sweet Petite Confections, may be the only chocolatier in San Diego who brings a background in fashion design to the world of artisan chocolate making. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, Lomelin entered the fashion industry; designing Mes and Juniors Surfwear, Misses, Childrens and Tween ready-to-wear lines – even spending two years as a Halloween costume designer. By 2000, the need for a change drew Lomelin away from the style scene and propelled her – aided by the encouragement of her mother, Nancy, who had initially introduced her to chocolates – to pursue a new career as a chocolatier. Awakening to the realization that she didn’t have to choose just one career over the course of her lifetime, she embarked on what she calls “a new century, a new career, a new life.
Sweet Petite Confections’ first sales occurred in 2008, with Lomelin offering her first collection of chocolates for Valentine’s Day 2009. She moved into a brick- and-mortar location in May 2015. Today, Lomelin is perhaps the only chocolatier around who designs chocolates as one might design a clothing line. She chooses colors, prints, packaging and flavor profiles for each season and holiday, and uses traditional fashion design processes including a merchandising calendar, a marketing calendar and inspiration boards. Lomelin considers her biggest triumph the actualization of a company created purely from her own creative drive. You can find her experimenting with flavor profiles and combinations, always in search of the wonderful and the unexpected.
