Miansai broke through as a red-hot jewelry brand in 2008 with its coolly casual leather cord–and–metal men’s Anchor bracelet (see the design below). The nautical-inspired design spawned legions of copycats and remains popular a full decade later.
Since then, the Miami-based brand, which has a pair of stores—in New York City’s SoHo and on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, Calif.—has been busy building and diversifying both its men’s and women’s collections.
To commemorate a decade in business, Miansai has debuted a collection called New Nostalgia that uses rolled-out coins—printed with proprietary designs—as jewelry elements. A cheeky homage to the kiddie penny rollout machines you find at zoos, museums, and other family entertainment spots, the collection boasts a fun DIY element for consumers: Customers choose and roll out their own coin designs.
Miansai is installing a penny-roller machine in its New York boutique this week, and a second roller machine will soon follow at its California store.
Shoppers can choose to string their coins on a sterling silver chain ($125) or a textile cord ($95).
The brand plans to leverage the coin jewelry idea for partnerships, too: Miansai will debut a penny necklace with New York City’s Public hotel in celebration of the property’s one-year anniversary, and it will also partner with Club Monaco on a necklace this fall, though details of that team-up are not yet being released. (The same company representative told JCK that Miansai is in the early stages of a partnership with iconic sportswear brand Fila, too.)
So basically, Miansai is working it when it comes to creating programs and partnerships that fire up its fans and would-be consumers. No surprise there—innovative partnerships and experimental retailing have been the key to its success all along.
This is the jewelry brand that perfected mobile retailing—the kind that travels on wheels!
Miansai debuted its first-ever roving boutique, a classic Airstream set up as a shop, in 2012, before both of its flagship retail locations were realized. The Airstream made stops at 15 cities all over the country in 2017 and appeared at music festivals including SXSW, Coachella, and Jazz Fest before summering in the Hamptons (nice life, Airstream!).
The roving store concept has worked so well for the brand, it doubled its fleet of vehicles last year by adding two vintage Piaggios, a second Airstream, and a vintage Fiat that have been rolling into high-traffic events all summer.
The man behind the brand’s innovations is Miansai founder Michael Saiger, who launched Miansai in 2008 out of his college dorm room. It’s now stocked in 40 U.S. states and 37 countries.
Top: Miansai New Nostalgia necklace with silver chain
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