Maral Artinian didn’t set out to build a jewelry brand—she set out to build a different relationship between a woman and the things she wears. When she founded MARLI New York in 2014, the premise was quietly radical: fine jewelry that doesn’t wait for an occasion, crafted with the precision of a luxury house and worn with the ease of something you’d never take off.
MARLI New York founder Maral Artinian on the brand's evolution, its first timepiece collection, and why the best jewelry is the one you choose for yourself.
More than a decade later, that vision has only sharpened. And with the launch of MARLI’s first timepiece collection, it has found an entirely new dimension. Ahead, we sat down with Artinian to talk about the evolution of the brand, what it means to enter watchmaking with intention, and why the most meaningful piece of jewelry is always the one you choose for yourself.
HAUTE TIME: You have created an iconic jewelry brand; I remember when I first saw the pieces in 2015. Can you walk us through the evolution into designing timepieces?
MARAL ARTINIAN: You have been part of this journey since almost the very beginning, and there’s something full circle about revisiting that history with you now, at this particular chapter. Watches have always held a different kind of meaning for me. Long before MARLI, I was drawn to them as objects of sentiment as much as craft — the way a watch gets passed down, worn every day, and becomes a part of someone’s story. That fascination never left me. As MARLI grew, our clients started asking for it, and I realized the brand had reached a point where it could carry that vision. Entering watchmaking wasn’t a departure; it was always there, waiting for the right moment to be realized.
HT: It’s clearly a natural extension of the brand, but what was important to you in designing the watches?
MA: We wanted every timepiece to feel like a MARLI creation first and a watch second. That meant translating MARLI’s design language — the architecture, the precision, the emotion — into a completely different discipline without losing what makes it ours.
At the same time, we have deep respect for Swiss watchmaking and its history. We approached this collection with rigor: every proportion, every finish, every mechanism is developed to stand on its own technically, not just aesthetically. Craftsmanship has always been the foundation MARLI was built on, and watchmaking demanded an even more exacting version of that discipline. The result is something that honors that heritage while remaining unmistakably MARLI.
HT: As a jewelry founder in 2026, what has evolved since you started the brand?
MA: What’s changed most is the reason someone reaches for a piece of jewelry in the first place. It used to live almost entirely inside the language of occasion: a gift, a milestone, and something given rather than chosen. Now, more than ever, people are buying jewelry for themselves, simply because it speaks to who they are in that moment. People also want that self-expression backed by real quality, and they’re paying more attention to craftsmanship and to how something is made, not just how it looks.
That shift is exactly what MARLI was created for. From the beginning, we set out to build a brand rooted in self-expression, without ever compromising on craft. We never wanted our pieces to sit in a drawer waiting for a special day. We wanted them worn, lived in, and woven into someone’s everyday moments. Beautiful, yes, but also crafted to last and made with intention. That evolution has only deepened the mission MARLI started with.
HT: Where do you want to see the industry go?
MA: I think we’ll continue to see jewelry become more playful, more experimental, and less bound by occasion. It’s moving toward something people wear because it feels like them, not because a moment calls for it, and that openness is exciting. It means jewelry for every age, every demographic, and every version of self-expression.
I also believe deeply in retail’s role in that experience. There is something about trying a piece on, seeing how it catches the light, feeling it on your hand, that a screen simply cannot replicate. Our new flagship on Madison Avenue was built around that belief: intentional, precise, and alive with the spirit of New York. It’s an intimate space designed for discovery, where the relationship between a person and their jewelry actually begins.
HT: What are some of your all-time favorite jewelry pieces?
MA: Some of my earliest memories are of watching my mother get ready. She wasn’t just accessorizing; she was becoming more herself. I didn’t have the language for it then, but I understood, even as a child, that I was watching something powerful happen.
That’s really where my education began. I learned the technical side of this industry later through my family’s business — the craftsmanship, the precision, and what makes a stone exceptional. But my mother taught me the part that can’t be trained: that jewelry isn’t simply a beautiful object; it’s an emotional one. It holds memory, intention, identity. Watching her, I understood that a piece only becomes meaningful once it’s lived in, once it’s chosen for a reason that has nothing to do with occasion and everything to do with how it makes you feel.
That duality — craftsmanship and emotion, precision and feeling — is at the heart of everything MARLI creates, and it’s part of why I’ve never been able to pick just one favorite. Every collection carries that same intention. But if I had to choose the one I wear most often, it would be the Cleo collection. It’s where MARLI’s design language was born, and it captures the essence of MARLI in its purest form: design, craft, and the kind of everyday styling that becomes part of a person’s story.
Our Timepiece collection has opened up an entirely new creative dimension for MARLI, and I’m still fully immersed in exploring it. I try not to force direction; I’d rather build, envision, and let the work show me where it wants to go. That’s been true of every chapter MARLI has moved through. Nothing has felt chased; it’s more that each evolution arrives exactly when it’s meant to.
What I find most exciting right now is our community. The connection between MARLI and the people who wear it continues to deepen in ways that genuinely move me, and heading into this next chapter, that’s where our focus is: new expressions of the design language MARLI has created, and new ways for people to make it their own.
