CHARLES C. LYNCH doesn’t consider himself a stylish man. “I don’t wear a lot of jewelry myself,” admits the owner of Bilasáana, an Apple Watch band and accessories maker in Farmington. “I wear Levi’s and a shirt. But I’ll always wear a watchband.”
Even his route to fashion entrepreneur has been unconventional. In 2007, Lynch’s life, as he knew it, was turned upside down. “The feds came barreling into my house with machine guns, flak jackets, and helmets,” he says. At the time, he was working as a computer programmer with a side business selling medical marijuana out of his city-sanctioned dispensary in Morro Bay, California. “They took everything,” he says.
Arrested and prosecuted under federal law, Lynch became a central figure in the battle between federal and local marijuana laws. “No one would hire me,” he says. So Lynch moved in with his mother in Farmington, where she ran a retail shop selling Native-made arts and crafts. “In 2015, Apple started shipping their watches,” he recalls. Lynch liked the tech, but not the standard plastic wristband. “My mom knew a couple of Native American silversmiths,” he says. “I drew up some specs and told them to do their own thing.”
The result is Bilasáana, which takes its name from the Diné word for “apple.” Although he is not Indigenous himself, Lynch takes pride in the fact that Buu Van Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, is among his customers. For Lynch, whose record was expunged in April 2024, Bilasáana has become a beacon of hope and a reminder that creativity can always find a way. “I am hoping to learn silversmithing myself someday,” he says. “I want to keep the show going.”
Shop Bilasáana at 401 W. Main St., in Farmington, and online at bilasaana.com.