New Beginnings with The M Jewelers

office had the opportunity to visit the elegant new space and speak to Mark Shami ahead of the store opening this past weekend. Read on to really get to know The M Jewelers.

How did your story with The M Jewelers begin?

I started the company around eight years ago. I have a background of jewelers in my family; my dad was in the jewelry industry. He had a little mom-and-pop shop in the Diamond District and then my two uncles were both in the industry as well. I was always working with all of them and it was kind of a summer job at the time, or, you know, whenever I wasn't in school. So I learned all different aspects of the jewelry industry from them. And then later down the line, after working in the Diamond District for so long and working in their offices, I started to build a little bit of the website and take photos of things that were in my dad's shop. Growing up, I was making a lot of nameplates with my father and he taught me how to make name rings and all that — from start to finish. That was the side of the business that I really enjoyed, so I started developing what would be The M Jewelers in my head, early on. And at that time, the Instagram-era was starting to brew. We started making nameplates and sending them to different people. And there wasn't any paid promo at the time either. So all these people were posting things and it was starting to brew. We kind of built a community online first, and it started funneling in customers and customers. And then about two years later I had my partner join and we started really going after the marketing angle of the business and started gifting a lot. We were making about one-hundred to 150 nameplates a day and sending them out to everybody we could. And it was kind of crazy at the time because we didn't really have any money and we were just going and going. Since then, it's just been a big snowball effect of us taking what we built in the Diamond District and opening up the variety and selection of our products and getting better as a company. But I mean we're eight years in now and we've definitely learned a lot, and tomorrow we open our first actual store. We've done so many pop-ups all over the country and collaborations, like Nike, Kith, Adidas, Converse — a bunch of beauty brands and things like that. In the past year, we've really honed it in and thought, 'Okay, what really represents the brand? What makes sense?'

In what ways is this new storefront an ode to your first store that opened in the Diamond District?

The whole ethos of the brand is always going to be the Diamond District store; it's embedded in me and the brand for sure. And we still make all our personalized pieces there. But the cool thing is our staple items that are still our number one best sellers were our number one best sellers from the first day. So our product assortment is still the same product that we've been doing for eight years now — but with the new store, it's kind of a new rendition of those old products over time. The Diamond District and Mulberry Street to me are very, very similar in their own way though. The Diamond District is like its own country — its own world. When you go over there, it's super different; you feel like you're not even in New York. And then Mulberry is such a close-knit community and there's so much history here. So we want to take a little bit of both and kind of tuck into the street and not be super flashy or anything like that. We want it to feel like, 'Oh, the store's been here for 50 years already.'

I think the cool thing about the simplicity of the store is that it also lets the things that you guys do shine through. On a more personal note, looking back to that store in the Diamond District and then seeing what you have now, how does it feel to be experiencing this new growth for the brand?

Oh, it's amazing. I mean, when we opened that store, I felt like a totally different person. I was a lot younger. I feel like I'm a hundred years old now. That store was only 150 square feet — super tiny. But we were actually recently all looking back at all the photos and things we had from there. We used to pack all our initial orders there and now we have a team of 20 plus people. It's cool to see us grow into a space that's one thousand plus square feet and to let people come in and experience the brand for real here, the music we like to listen to, and to see the product. We created our own scent with a New York-based brand for the store too. So we've done all these things to really capture what the brand is all about, where in the Diamond District, it was just a really little booth and you came in and there could probably be a hundred different things happening at once. But here, it's going to be such a comforting, unique, clean experience. But we'll still have those nitty-gritty Diamond District products that we've always been showcasing.

Why did you decide to collaborate with interior designer Samantha Cullari for the new store?

The cool thing is, everyone who's worked on the store are really close friends of ours. We did it all just with our group. So my partner, Anthony, built the entire store — literally. And that's why it took us so long, but we built everything. It's all custom. It's really, really wild how long it took us because everything is in the details. And then Sam has been an old friend for about 10 years at this point. I always really liked her style. She's design-trained and she has really great taste and we always saw eye-to-eye on everything as far as design. She even built her own house. She said to me, 'Hey, if you're ever designing a store, let me know.' So right when we signed the lease here, I thought, 'Oh, let me go talk to her.' And we started talking and she had the right vision for it. So it really already feels like a community, like even tonight, we have a bunch of people that are dropping off stuff and it's really cool because it's everyone from around the area. It's cool to see everybody come in already and show their support. I feel like it's going to be a really special moment — this whole week.

I love how you added these personal touches to the new store. Can you tell me more about that scent you created?

Yeah, it's with a brand called Sidia. We developed this scent called 'Mulberry' in candles and essential oils for the past couple of months and it's really nice. It's kind of woody; it's calm.

Aside from some of the personal elements you guys added in, what are you most excited for others to see when they enter into this new space?

We have a bunch of surprises. We even built a whole custom flower cart that's going outside tonight and it'll be out for tomorrow. The bouquets are all ribbon-tied with our logo. So we're gonna create a cool experience with that. And even that company is a florist from Jersey City that we grew up with too. They're a little mom-and-pop shop and we're bringing them in to do all the flowers and arrangements and things for people. But what we're really excited about for tomorrow is that we've merchandised so well. We spent so much time on this place so we're really excited for people to understand the brand for the first time, you know? It really feels like it's the first day we're starting because everyone's always looked at us as, 'Oh, this is a really big online company. Is it real? Is it not real? What is it?' So I think tomorrow will solidify that.

Totally. I've known The M Jewelers for a long time but, I agree, a lot of it was on that basis of social media. I think putting a visual aspect to this name that everyone knows has to be something super, super rewarding for you guys.

One-hundred percent.

What about this particular location made you jump at putting the store there?

Our office is a couple of blocks away and I live a few blocks away too. We spend a lot of time in this neighborhood. The big thing here is that it feels like home for us and everyone around us — all the neighboring brands, stores, restaurants, and even wine shops — we know everybody. It just feels kind of perfect. And it was a blank canvas when we came in here, so it really feels like ours now. The moment we walked into this spot, we were like, 'Okay, this is it.’

The new store acts as an immersive shopping experience that travels beyond just shopping — it will also be a space for the community to come together and celebrate. Are there any events you are hoping to host there in the new year?

We have a lot stacked up for the store. One thing we're doing — we have a collaboration coming out with an artist named Mr. K; he's a tattoo artist at Bang Bang. He designed a whole collection by hand and he's going to be doing tattoos in the shop, in a few weeks when we release the collection. We've collaborated with artist and model Alexander Roth twice at this time. We're having him do a night, along with a wine company, where they come and do pairings of things. We're going to be activating very, very frequently. We are also going to do a ‘friends and family night,’ where everyone from the neighborhood, everyone even outside of the city that we're friends with, will come in. We're playing it safe with COVID right now. But in the future, we're going to have a lot of stuff happening here. I would say every few weeks on a monthly basis and especially in the summer. I run all the time and every time I would run past this area, I would think how much fun it is in the summer when there are people hanging out outside. We want to make everybody feel like they're a part of it. Everyone's welcome.