Call it A Tale of Two Summer Jobs. Jesse Marlo Lazowski worked at different times during high school for her dad’s parking company and in the New York City offices of fashion and accessories designer Cynthia Rowley.

The contrast tells a story about Lazowski, who learned about A-to-Z operations from Rowley and about creating a collaborative work environment from her father. Sprinkle in a great-aunt who worked with antique jewelry and a mom who excelled at interior design, and you can see how Lazowski had a head start on becoming a jewelry-designing entrepreneur.

Lazowski established her first jewelry company in 2012, when she was 22 years old. She remembers calling her lawyers and business advisers from Jaipur, India, where she was designing jewelry, to form her first LLC. She moved to New York City, planting herself on 47th Street (the street with the Diamond District) to work with a second-generation manufacturer who took Lazowski under his wing.

By 2014, Lazowski had the design, marketing, and business chops to rebrand. She introduced Marlo Laz to friends first, held trunk shows, then grew into Bergdorf Goodman, and in 2019 opened her first boutique. Coincidentally, the Marlo Laz shop in NYC’s West Village is across the street from the building where Lazowski worked for Cynthia Rowley.

“I feel like jewelry is how I can make an impact on this world—it is my voice to spread messages of goodness, positivity, good luck, and light,” Lazowski says. “It’s a way to make people’s inner light shine through, to encourage them to believe in themselves, and to have a positive impact on others. It’s full of messaging, packed in gold and diamonds.”

Lazowski grew up in Hartford, Conn., where she lived minutes away from her grandparents and great-grandparents. Her grandparents and great-aunt are Holocaust survivors, and Lazowski says she is lucky to still have all of them with her today.

“Their life experiences have informed everything about who I am and what I stand for, instilling in me a mission to spread goodness and positivity to the world, to practice gratitude, to find lightness in darkness, and to remember to count our lucky stars,” says Lazowski.

Her world travels began in high school when she left Hartford for boarding school in Leysin, Switzerland. Lazowski returned to the States to attend George Washington University, but only for a year. A new city called: She transferred to the American University of Paris, and graduated with a degree in art history and communication.

“Studying in Paris was among the greatest decisions I ever made,” she says. “I was able to spend three years based in Paris, traveling all over the world to over 40 countries, learning the French language—which has become extremely important in our designs—gathering inspiration, and building a library of culture to last a lifetime. All of which continues to be funneled into the tiny treasures of jewelry in the collection.”

The early years of Marlo Laz weren’t always easy—Lazowski was young and didn’t have any experience in the industry working for another jewelry brand or designing under someone else. She says she learned by doing, trusting her intuition and going with the flow.

“While I had so much to learn, I think going in so naive and unfamiliar with the landscape ultimately worked in my favor,” she says. “It allowed me to march to the beat of my own drum, build out my own vision, create my own company culture, and develop my unique aesthetic without being clouded by the way other people did things.”

Marlo Laz gained fans with its signature Porte Bonheur charms and other talismanic designs, along with the bespoke fonts—some used in French words—on the brand’s pieces. Before Marlo Laz came on the scene, motifs like lucky stars were generally unheard of in fine jewelry.

Lazowski’s jewelry has been worn by such A-listers as Beyoncé and Sarah Jessica Parker —and at the White House by the designer herself. One of her greatest honors, though, was going home last year to receive the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame Spotlight award.

“I grew up in a very creative yet also business-minded household. They raised me to believe that I could turn anything I was passionate about into a business and encouraged and supported me in doing so,” Lazowski says. “It’s amazing where you can go in life when you have people in your corner who believe in you.”

Top: Jesse Marlo Lazowski founded the Marlo Laz brand in 2014, just two years into working in fine jewelry. (Photos courtesy of Marlo Laz)

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