In her years as an architecture student, sculptor, and design manager for a metalsmith company, Maghan Oroszi (pictured) learned this about art: It is never done, it’s not precious, and it’s all about the process.
She uses that knowledge daily in her newest role, as CEO of fine jewelry brand Mignon Faget. The brand is a New Orleans institution that’s been around more than half a century of work, but it embraces imperfection and individuality in the jewelry it makes, according to Oroszi.
“Art is about process, and it’s process that gives richness to the finished piece,” she says. “It’s about exploration and understanding and rethinking and reworking.”
Oroszi, who joined Mignon Faget in 2010, says the company’s holiday collection is an example of this philosophy. Its handcrafted pieces make a statement with unusual shapes like banana leaves, the maximalist playfulness of rough-cut crystals, chunky gemstones, and scrollwork designs, as found in its new Legacy line.
For Oroszi, her work at Mignon Faget and throughout her life has always come back to architectural ideals of form and function. Fine jewelry has to function: Does it wear well? Is it comfortable on the neck, wrist, or hand? But it also needs a beautiful form, so it adorns the body in an aesthetically pleasing way.
Oroszi remembers wanting to be an architect from a very early age. She was drawn to the profession because it’s one where you know how something is made layer by layer.
“I always loved how things were made and putting things together. I was 10 when my parents bought a grill and I begged them to let me put it together,” Oroszi says.
Her path to New Orleans and Mignon Faget was long and circuitous, she says. In 1993 she enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design, after getting wait-listed by Cornell. Though she made it only one year at RISD because of its cost, the lessons she learned there have been among the most critical ones in her career.
“I was able to see design from all facets. In your freshman year, you have to take core classes in drawing, painting, sculpture. I had done art in high school, but I never saw it as a possible career. RISD taught me to see it, and that was amazing,” Oroszi says.
She moved to New Orleans in 1995 to attend the more cost-effective Tulane University. During some semesters, she worked instead of taking classes, and she ended up leaving school for a full-time position with jewelry-maker Bernard K. Passman, a job she found in a newspaper ad.
“All the ad said was they were looking for jewelers, sculptors, and artisans. I thought, ‘I’m an artisan,’ because I was doing everything then—photography, set design, sculpture.
“In the interview,” Oroszi recalls, “they showed me this gold cat with pavé diamonds sitting on a black coral pillow and asked, ‘Can you make this?’ And I said yes.”
Her first assignment with Passman, in 2001, was to make a single pair of earrings over and over until they were “perfect.” It was grueling work and not particularly glamorous, but it was a foot in the door of jewelry.
Passman’s studio was damaged when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, and he decided to move the business to Miami. Oroszi went with it, but after a couple of years decided she had to make a change. In 2007, she moved to upstate New York to be near family and answered another vague newspaper ad—this one was looking for a 3D modeler.
Oroszi showed up for the interview and was asked if she could make a hawk sculpture in bronze. She got the job at Fine Architectural Metalsmiths and learned how to make the hawk and many other things out of metal. Just as she had at Passman, over time she gained a range of skills, from hand-modeling to using sculpting computer programs.
Still, architecture called to her. She contacted Tulane, and it agreed to readmit her. She’d need a job in New Orleans to help pay for school, and ultimately the job preempted her finishing her degree: Oroszi sent her résumé to Mignon Faget—and the rest, as they say, is history.
She was hired as a design and research assistant and later held such posts as special projects manager, associate creative director, and chief operations officer on her way to CEO, mentored by founder Mignon Faget herself. Now Oroszi wants to ensure the brand has the chops to expand nationally and internationally.
“Mignon Faget is an icon, and her company is an iconic New Orleans brand,” she says. “It’s important to the city, and I want it to make it another 50 years. One hundred years—it could be that company.”
(Photos courtesy of Mignon Faget)
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