11 Dreamy Pieces From Mejuri That Will Make You Feel Like A Million Bucks

11 Dreamy Pieces From Mejuri That Will Make You Feel Like A Million Bucks

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Mejuri: Drafting a New Sustainability Roadmap

This article first appeared in the special edition of The State of Fashion: Watches and Jewellery, co-published by The Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company. To learn more and download a copy of the report, click here.

Direct-to-consumer fine jewellery label Mejuri had sustainability and innovation built into its brand DNA from the beginning, says co-founder and former engineer Noura Sakkijha. At the time of its Series B funding, Net-a-Porter founder and investor Natalie Massenet, whose fund Imaginary participated in the round, said the brand’s affordable prices and socially responsible sourcing model were “set to disrupt the industry.” To date, Sakkijha has attracted over $48 million in venture capital funding for the brand.

Known for its female-centric designs — of which around 75 percent are bought by women as self-purchases or gifts for friends — and innovative product drop model, Mejuri sources exclusively from either Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC)-certified suppliers or family-owned businesses near the brand’s headquarters of Toronto, Canada. As she looks ahead to the next five years, Sakkijha says that while existing infrastructures can facilitate initial steps towards improving the industry’s impact, the next generation of jewellery brands have an opportunity to grow if they look beyond existing sustainability frameworks, dig deeper into their supply chain and draft their own roadmaps for change.

BoF: Concerns for the environment and workers across the industry’s value chains have been put even further under the spotlight by the pandemic, yet the jewellery sector has been criticised as one of the slowest to implement change. How do you see this tension point around sustainability becoming an opportunity for jewellery brands?

Noura Sakkijha: I think it’s a silver lining to the pandemic, because we all have to push for better practices across all industries. One of the challenges is that existing infrastructures mask how deep companies go in their due diligence… From far away, they make it look like if you check the box, you’re doing the right thing but when you start to [scrutinise] more, you see there are limitations.

The majority of our sales are for products made from gold, so we decided we would have the [biggest] impact if we started with our gold supply chain. We’ve set ourselves up with RJC-certified suppliers, but we also went back to our suppliers and asked more. We are upping our targets for the amount of certified recycled gold we use. Next, we’re turning to silver. Our ultimate goal is for all our materials to have visibility from mine to market, but with the current infrastructures in the industry, it’s not easy for us to immediately figure that out… You have to ask the right questions… and having the right expertise on the team [to do so] is really, really important.

How important do you think circularity is going to be for jewellery brands over the next five years?

Figuring out circular models is very important because you will have excess inventory at some point… We’re never going to be able to 100 percent [accurately] predict demand. But what is unique about the jewellery industry is anything excess in inventory that doesn’t sell can be refined back into the supply chain. There are opportunities to figure out how to recycle gemstones, though we’re still early in the research… so it’s not [yet] mainstream.

Becoming smarter in how much you actually produce from the get-go is not just a financial tool, but it also has a responsibility aspect to it. The more compressed your supply chain, the less risk you have. That’s why a lot of big brands are moving closer to their manufacturing facilities.

Younger consumers say that brands are not always honest enough when it comes to their environmental or social impact. How can brands avoid being called out for greenwashing or acts of performative social justice?

The consumer is not [always] aware of the industry’s complexities, so how can we influence positive change and also show the friction points? I think it’s all about transparency — not just about what we’re doing, but transparency about the challenges too. Our role is to set the roadmap, to ask the right questions and push for change, but it cannot happen overnight.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

The Stars’ Favourite Everyday Fine Jewellery Brand Is Popping Up In London

A giant jewellery box has landed on South Molton Street, the gateway between the bustle of Oxford Street and the luxury of Mayfair. Open until Sunday, the chic, Scandi-style pop-up store is the brainchild of Mejuri, the everyday fine jewellery brand beloved by everyone from Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish to Emily Ratajkowski and the Duchess of Cambridge.

Emily Ratajkowski wearing Mejuri’s Le Chain necklace.

Noura Sakkijha, who founded the direct-to-consumer brand in 2015, says opening a store in the UK was a must given that it is Mejuri’s fastest growing market. Although online is where things started for the brand, its six North American stores have proven to be crucial in building the customer experience. “Ninety-five per cent of new customers want to touch and feel the product,” she says. And touch and feel the product they can. Just as in Mejuri’s permanent stores, the pop-up is a far cry from a stuffy, traditional jewellery store, which intimidates with its security on the door and rows of jewellery behind glass. At Mejuri, it is important to Sakkijha that everything is on display and available to be touched and tried on. Plus there sofas and snacks for good measure. “It’s all about hanging out together and spending time with the stylist in a very relaxed manner,” she explains.