May 10, 2020About six weeks before coronavirus forced its chic Bleecker Street boutique in Manhattan’s West Village to close temporarily, Marlo Laz threw an official opening party. Friends and fans celebrated in the shop’s series of small rooms painted in a soothing shade of millennial pink and decorated with mid-century modern furniture. Every detail of the decor, conceived by Marlo Laz founder and designer Jesse Marlo Lazowski and her mother, interior designer Marcia Lazowski, reflects the label’s compelling backstory.
Their vision for the space was informed by the same concept that underlies the brand’s signature La Trouvaille collection. “I wanted the store to feel like a lucky discovery or unexpected find,” the younger Lazowski says. “It’s an Italian palazzo meets a Moroccan riad meets an Indian haveli meets a southwestern adobe.”
One of the most surprising elements is the 1960s Lucite backgammon table from John Salibello. “My mom and I collect vintage backgammon tables, so we thought the space had to have one,” Lazowski explains. “It serves as a checkout counter as well as a game board. People have come in and played.”
Although Lazowski is only 29, her jewelry journey started decades ago, when she was just 10 years old. “My great aunt, who was an antique jewelry dealer in Boston, taught me about her inventory, which included Art Nouveau, among other dreamy styles,” remembers Lazowski. By the time she turned 13, Lazowski had become a full-fledged enthusiast, which led her to request an unusual bat mitzvah gift: a delicate vintage ruby and diamond bow brooch. And she wanted to transform it into a necklace. That same year, Lazowski formed her first company, Shop Girl, which she launched with a collection of chunky bead necklaces she had strung at her kitchen table. Her pieces were sold at In House, a store in her hometown of Hartford, Connecticut. “It was displayed in the front case, and a local newscaster wore one on TV,” says Lazowski.
Lazowski put her budding career on hold while she attended boarding school in Switzerland, but her passion for jewelry was reignited in 2012 when she took a break from studying at the American University in Paris to vacation with her mother in India. “We arrived in Jaipur, and I had this incredible connection to the place, the sounds, smell and color,” explains Lazowski. “I said, ‘Take me to the artisans. I want to design!’ ” On that trip, she made early renditions of her Evil Eye ring and Juju necklaces, which she sold to friends.
After graduation, Lazowski moved to New York City and fired up her bead business again, putting her mother and grandmother on her mini-production line. She got serious about making fine jewelry, attending design classes at the Gemological Institute of America and even finding a craftsman in Manhattan’s jewelry district to walk her through his processs. Then, she poured her heart into Marlo Laz. The line, entirely manufactured in New York City, launched in 2014, when Lazowski presented it at a trade show and received her first order from a retail store.
Her first collection, La Trouvaille, featured international symbols of good luck. Lazowski had become fascinated by these emblems while at her Swiss boarding school, whose student body hailed from 52 countries. Porte bonheur — the French term for lucky charm, often found on vintage pendants — is imprinted on a number of Marlo Laz gem-set, gold and enamel pendants and band rings.
The Marlo Laz Eyecon series includes super-size evil eye rings and pendants with inset stones. The design’s meaning goes beyond its traditional function of warding off danger. “It expresses my fascination with Surrealism and Salvador Dalí’s Eye of Time jewel,” explains Lazowski. “I also think of the Diana Vreeland phrase ‘The eye has to travel.’ The eye is about staying curious and keeping an open outlook and noticing the details while traveling.”
She follows Vreeland’s advice in a way that would have made the fashion icon proud. Lazowski’s wanderlust has informed many of her collections. One of the most stunning, Desert Rising, reflects her love of the Southwest, particularly Taos, New Mexico, and admiration for Standard Oil heiress Millicent Rogers, who famously made her home there from 1947 until her death, in 1953. “She was this insane collector of haute bijoux who also had a passion for artisanal work and craftsmanship,” says Lazowski. A letter Rogers wrote her son about the colors of the sky and the ground inspired the Elements jewels, which represent water, fire, earth and air. The Native American symbol for protection with two arrows can be found in pendant earrings set with diamonds and colored gems. Squash blossom necklaces were Lazowski’s reference point for a whole series of designs. “I have never seen a squash blossom necklace in gold, so I thought I would make one,” she says. “We made our own gold beads, and those became an element on their own for bracelets and necklaces.” The hues of the gems in the squash blossom jewels are drawn from Arizona sunsets.
Lazowski decided to open her own boutique because she wanted to put her jewelry in a context that revealed more about the designs’ inspirations and her design philosophy. Her appreciation of mixed metals, for example, is expressed in the Mastercraft-style brass display cases and pair of Milo Baughman chrome étagères.
Lazowski also loves to mix colors and textures, a penchant demonstrated in the shop’s tessellated pink/peach marble pedestal table and Italian iron and mosaic table, both produced by Maitland Smith in the 1950s and sourced from South Loop Loft. “The marble has a nice raw and refined edge, like a rough and polished gemstone,” says Lazowski. “My mother and I flipped over the mosaic table because it had all the colors of my birthstone collection.”
Other design highlights are Warren Platner and Vladimir Kagan chairs, an Ettore Stossass mirror and a monumental Murano chandelier by Barovier. With their custom woodwork, the archways between the rooms evoke the decorative doorways of Rajasthan. The various elements are pulled together by the pink walls and orange floors, hues inspired by the color scheme of Luis Barragán’s house in Mexico City.
“The original mission statement for Marlo Laz was that it brings you beyond borders, and I was able to do that with the design of the store,” says Lazowski. “The brand is also about friends and family and community. When we reopen, I look forward to welcoming everyone back into the space.”
