Monica Wealthy Kosann Nice Jewellery Turns 20 and Maneuvers for Progress

With the lockets and charms Monica Wealthy Kosann has been designing for a few years, the intent is evident.

“Once we began our enterprise 20 years in the past, my aim, my philosophy was to create jewellery that allowed a girl to inform her story, and to really feel that they had been items that had been private, empowering and provoking,” Kosann mentioned. “Our philosophy hasn’t modified. I’m simply attempting to create items that basically make a girl really feel like she’s placing on her armor for the day.”

This yr marks the twentieth anniversary of the Monica Wealthy Kosann high quality jewellery enterprise, and by coincidence, a lot has been completed throughout this milestone second to develop the model story.

In late October, a 600-square-foot Monica Wealthy Kosann store opened in The Forbes Firm’s Somerset Assortment in Troy, Mich. Additionally, a transforming and enlargement of the Monica Wealthy Kosann store on the seventh flooring of Bergdorf Goodman was accomplished. The corporate continues to function in Manhattan two 200-square-foot, glass-enclosed, cubical retailers inside The Retailers & Restaurant at Hudson Yards, and The Retailers at Columbus Circle. Kosann calls them “my jewel bins.”

“We do really feel just like the model at this level is positioned for extra alternative than we may give ourselves. So we’re actively altering the capital construction of the enterprise,” mentioned Rod Kosann, co-owner of the corporate along with his spouse Monica. “We’re dedicated to retailer enlargement over the subsequent three to 5 years. We’re going to rearrange the capital construction of the enterprise to assist retailer enlargement as a result of there’s nothing dearer. Doing shops proper could be very capital intensive.”

The corporate has ramped up wholesaling by increasing distribution into Canada through two luxurious retailers — Birks, the high quality jewellery retailer, and Holt Renfrew, the nation’s main luxurious vogue retailer — and augmenting its longstanding enterprise with the Mitchell Shops luxurious retail group by including Wilkes Bashford in Palo Alto, Calif. Monica Wealthy Kosann sells to about 150 factors retailers in complete, principally unbiased jewelers and specialty retailers, together with a few dozen added to the lineup this fall.

Junk mail was expanded this yr, after a profitable check in the course of the vacation 2023 season.

On the Somerset Assortment, “We’ve a three-sided nook spot on the 50-yard line between Saks and Neiman’s,” Rod mentioned. “We’ve about 40 p.c extra linear ft there than we’ve in both of our retailers in New York Metropolis. We are able to inform much more tales. There are tales that we will’t inform at Columbus Circle as a result of we don’t have the area for it. However we nonetheless love that area a lot that we maintain discovering methods to be actually environment friendly.

“We love the administration philosophy of the Forbes Firm,” he mentioned. “Their advertising and marketing and administration workforce has been actually useful. They’re attempting to make the best introductions and assist us take into consideration how to achieve success within the market. They’re internet hosting occasions. They’ve put us in contact with native media. They’ve complimentary supply each day inside 40 miles of the mall for the shops.”

“I already did a Zoom name with their private consumers so I may inform them about our model,” Monica added.

The Kosanns described the Troy retailer as very modern in design, with “excessive influence” graphics, an exterior painted within the model’s signature marigold, customized fixturing, glass home windows on three sides, and artwork work by Kosanns’ daughter Danielle, who serves as artwork director. Her paintings is offered on the Bergdorf store, is seen at The Carlyle resort in Manhattan (and on the resort menus) and is exhibited in galleries.

For the Troy store, she did a Michigan-themed oil portray that’s displayed within the window. “Inside, we actually lean into our locket bar, so our shoppers can benefit from the expertise and the entire course of,” Monica mentioned.

The locket bar, which permits prospects to take photographs from their telephones and have them sized completely to any locket they purchase, fills a wall and could be considered by the home windows from exterior the shop.

At Bergdorf’s, “I began on a tiny, three-foot shelf 20 years in the past. It was my backyard. I nurtured that, and now it’s this 400-square-foot store, significantly reworked with new furnishings, new carpeting, new lighting [and] new glass. It’s been repainted and re-wallpapered. It’s a really clear, vivid area, and we’ve the artwork hanging on the wall, our image frames within the again, and have numerous lovely room to really present all the jewellery,” which represents 85 p.c of what’s offered there; dwelling equipment, frames, artwork and present objects signify 15 p.c.

“This previous year-and-a-half, we crossed a significant threshold in going past the 2 foundations of our enterprise, the lockets and the appeal oriented collections, as a result of we began so as to add extra collections that also stayed very true to our model,” Rod mentioned, citing a “daring” silver assortment of earrings, rings, bracelets and necklaces deconstructing the image of infinity, and the “Factors North” 18-karat and silver collection of earrings, bracelets and cuffs with a compass-inspired cuff with a singular clasp.

“It took us two years to engineer this cuff. The mechanisms are unimaginable,” Monica mentioned. “Monica and our workforce examined the piece for six months,” Rod famous. The couple has filed for its patent safety.

As well as, the corporate made its first foray into diamond rings, with Level North on a regular basis and bridal rings, and the Kosanns tout the truth that one in every of their signature “design your individual” necklaces with their “Anna” locket with the compass appeal was worn by Nicole Kidman within the film “Child Lady.” The Kosanns additionally relaunched choose types pulled from the archives, such because the toggle bracelet and toggle necklace, and the “continent” appeal bracelet depicting earth’s seven continents on a restricted foundation in silver and 18-karat gold.

For the long run, the corporate is working with a U.Okay. branding agency “on reimagining what the model can appear like, from the packaging to the web site, for the subsequent 5 to 10 years,” Rod mentioned. “That marigold used at Troy is a nod to what’s coming from this branding firm, however we’re staying completely true to who we’re. Nothing is altering within the DNA.”

“Every little thing for us is about creating one thing that has which means,” Monica mentioned. “Infinity symbolizes something is feasible. The compass is right here to information you spiritually on the journeys and the roads that we take and consistently change. We’re within the enterprise of constructing connections. Not solely connections with our prospects, but in addition with our prospects, connecting with themselves.”