Sneak Peek: Inside Jewelry Designer Lizzie Mandler’s First Store

Fine jewelry designer Lizzie Mandler has opened her first-ever retail location in her native Los Angeles, in Hollywood’s trendy Sycamore district. The buzzy area is already home to a bevy of superstar brands including Just One Eye, Tartine Bakery, Nili Lotan, Bode, and Jeffrey Deitch (the gallery’s second L.A. outpost is here). 

Mandler, who launched her eponymous brand in 2012, says she began looking for space for her first brick-and-mortar location after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic because, “I think there is a renewed desire to have in-person experiences. The consumer wants to touch, feel, and relate in ways that we weren’t able to for three years. It’s a really exciting time to welcome people into a new space.” 

The designer’s been in the fine jewelry world since she was 16 years old; she studied traditional metal-smithing in Los Angeles and Florence, Italy. Her current client roster counts luminaries including Rihanna, Madonna, Beyonce, Victoria Beckham, and Jeremy Allen White.

Mandler’s first shop is meant to reflect details from beloved ateliers all over the world 

 “The store’s afforded me the opportunity to curate my world, and to invite customers to fully step inside the brand, but it also allowed me to create a space that is inviting and intimate,” Mandler says. “The bespoke jewelry process is an incredibly personal one; we get to be a part of some of the biggest moments in people’s lives. I wanted to create a space that both invited my customer into my brand’s home, and also created a space that encouraged creativity, vulnerability, and trust: a physical space that honors the process of bespoke fine jewelry.”

The designer says she doesn’t have plans to expand beyond L.A., explaining, “L.A. is home—it always has been. This space was never just about opening brick-and-mortar. It was about creating a home for the brand and a community, a place where all the facets of the brand come to light—from the most exciting to the most mundane—and a place where I, as a designer, could really put down roots.”

She collaborated with designer Lauren Feiner on her dream space, which was inspired by classical ateliers, with small details paying homage to special spaces erected by a variety of creators and brands.

For example, the store’s wall-to-wall carpet pays homage to traditional couture ateliers in Europe, which always have wall-to-wall. And the idea of using an off-black color for the carpet was a nod to diamond dealers who use black carpet to more easily spot a dropped diamond.

Above and below: The shop also stocks a selection of books and home goods, hand-picked by Mandler

Mandler especially loves the store’s stunning antique mirror tile wall, noting, “We knew we wanted to mirror that wall very early on. Before I even signed the lease on the space, my brother, who is a director and happens to have an eye for these things, told me my best light would be on that wall and I should mirror it from floor to ceiling to bounce the light around the space.”

She adds, “We had a challenge with the space, as it was large and industrial and I wanted to keep some of its original feeling with the high exposed ceilings, but it left the space feeling very sparse and cold. I kept looking for ways to bring in warmth and character to a completely new build.”

Eventually, she riddled out her mirror idea while in Paris for market week, her store already halfway built out. “I thought my contractor might quit when I called him to change the design on the wall,” she recalls, “but the antique mirror brought the warmth and character to the space that we needed. Mirror tiles are traditionally connected with ornate brass or glass rosettes, and adding the clean, domed, un-lacquered brass rosettes modernized it and allowed me to tie the wall into the rest of the space.”

As is the case with Mandler’s jewelry, the magic of her first space lies squarely in the details.

Top: Jewelry designer Lizzie Mandler (all photos courtesy of Lizzie Mandler)

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