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The demi-fine jewellery brand's founder on sustainability, originality and longevity.

'It was the days of Matthew Williamson. Sienna Miller had just emerged. Everyone was wearing these flowing boho dresses, but you couldn’t find cool jewellery to match – anything that wasn’t fine was really cheap quality. That’s where we saw the niche in the market.'

Marisa Hordern is describing the year in which she launched the now-cult brand Missoma. For those of you who pinpoint that time as somewhere in the early 2010s, try 2007. And that horn necklace almost everyone was wearing in 2015? It's actually been around since 2008.

The British-born CEO started making jewellery by hand at her kitchen table while working as a media buyer at the Switzerland-based luxury goods company Richemont. In 2007 Hordern quit her job to focus on her 'side hustle' full-time, and within a few years found her jewellery stocked at Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Liberty London.

Fast forward 15 years and Missoma is a market leader around the world, with a turnover that's grown exponentially, from £1m to £33m, in the past five years (and Miller is still repping the brand at festivals). Earlier this year, Missoma won the Queen’s Award for International Trade for Outstanding Short-Term Growth in overseas sales: exports have risen by 222% in the past three years and now make up 49% of all trade.

A post shared by Lucy Williams (@lucywilliams02)

In the early days of Missoma, Hordern says there were just three 'players' working in demi-fine jewellery. One was Monica Vinader and the other has since folded. 'I think tech brands are the ones that survive,' she tells ELLE UK. 'We’ve really been through hard times, including the last recession in 2008 – we are grafters.'

If the word ‘tech’ initially throws you when thinking about jewellery, consider how the majority of fashion labels worked long before the days of the Internet and Instagram; it largely relied on customers taking a chance on their reputation and style. Tired of the process, Hordern took matters into her own hands. ‘I was like, "I'm exhausted from trade shows, wholesale is killing us. There has to be a better way of doing this".' In 2011 Missoma went online direct to customers at a time when e-retail accounted for just 17% of the retail market.

There was another key moment that helped propel Missoma into the spotlight: a cover feature from ELLE UK. In 2007, singer-turned-actor Jennifer Lopez graced our May issue, styled with her signature, slick low-swept bun and oversized hoop earrings – Missoma’s pink, crystal-encrusted Hot Rox hoops, to be exact. ‘I remember that moment so well,' Hordern recalls. 'All my friends were calling me, I was just so excited. It was a close up!' It feels particularly significant now, in 2022, that Missoma is launching a new archive collection; a celebration of its most-loved pieces since the brand’s conception, with J-Lo’s exact hoops back in brighter, bolder rainbow colourways.

JLo's crystal-studded hoops are back in a rainbow colourway.

Switch up your all-gold stack with these colourful crystals.

Crystals were a brand signature when Missoma first launched.

Staying true to her brand signature style is an issue Hordern holds close to her heart. After spotting so many copies of customer favourites, like the Roman Coin necklace from the cult Lucy Williams collection, in recent years she feared her designs may no longer be associated with Missoma. Contrary to the belief that 'imitation is a form of flattery', Hordern says that these aren't 'inspired by' pieces, rather exact replicas using Missoma's original designs as moulds. ‘There’s a rise of counterfeits in the industry,’ Hordern explains. ‘You cut off the arms, but you can’t cut off the head.’

Is she ever tempted to just scrap her OG designs entirely to avoid this? The answer is 'no'. 'Your best sellers are your bread and butter: 80% of your sales come from 20% of your designs,' she notes. While Missoma is focussed on creating new designs, Hordern understands the importance of serving customers who return to its site to purchase their favourites. 'In fact, I am about to hop into a meeting about cutting down the collection since we have too much going on right now,' she says.

The Duchess of Cambridge wore these earrings a few years back.

Bella Hadid has been spotted in this style.

A pioneer in the tech sphere, Missoma counts itself as one of the first jewellery brands to foray into social media and partner with influencers. Hordern now counts collaborators such as content creator Lucy Williams ('she’s a genuine fan’) and British fashion designer Harris Reed (‘we met at a dinner party and instantly hit it off’) as good friends. ‘Collaborations only work if they’re natural,' Horden adds, noting that the brand's organic relationship with collaborators means customers rarely see ‘Ad’ alongside someone wearing a Missoma design on social media.

‘We are the brand people choose to wear, rather than get paid to wear,’ Hordern says. And that includes a serious roster of celebrity clientele including the likes of Gigi and Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa, Kendall Jenner and the Duchess of Cambridge. ‘Margot Robbie went to a pre-Oscar party in a necklace, and then then next day she was wearing us to the airport, then two days later surfing in the same piece in Sydney,’ she recalls.

It's fair to say that demi-fine jewellery has changed the way men and women dress in the 21st Century. Clothes might be more casual than ever before, but we’re adorning ourselves more, too: wearing stacks of gold vermeil plated jewellery to work, dinner, gym classes and on tracksuit-clad supermarket runs. But, as many jewellery fans know all too well, the cardinal rule when it comes to gold-vermeil plated anything is to avoid water, sweat, perfume or any chemicals or risk tarnishing it.

However, according to Hordern, it's more important to find joy in her brand's gold vermeil-plated designs rather than obsessing over what you can and can't do in them. 'I’m not going to take all of these of every night,’ she exclaims, pointing to the impressive stack of Missoma bracelets around her wrist. ‘Missoma is jewellery to live in, but this doesn’t mean it will last forever,’ she admits. ‘If you’re not going to enjoy it, what's the point?’

Gigi Hadid's go-to necklace for layering.

The Harris Reed collection marked a new look for Missoma.

Sienna Miller wore these to Glastonbury 2022.

Demi-fine is also a more sustainable option, if you live by Eco Age’s famous #30wears pledge which encourages shoppers to make a commitment to wearing a new item of clothing, footwear and jewellery at least 30 times. Whereas costume jewellery can be worn on a handful of occasions before turning your skin green, fine jewellery – its price point far beyond the reach of most of our purses – is widely reserved for special occasions.

‘We don’t shout about it enough,’ Hordern says of Missoma's sustainability efforts. 'We underplay everything because I am so conscious of never green washing,' she continues, discussing sustainability in-depth for a total of 20 minutes and regularly peppering her answers with the humble caveat: ‘I am not an expert on this!’ She could've fooled us.

‘Before sustainability became a byword and a must-have, [at the beginning] we started planting trees to offset carbon emissions with the female-founded company Tree Sisters,' she says. Today Missoma has planted approximately 250,000 trees, but that's not to say the brand is 100% carbon neutral. ‘Too many businesses use generalisations,' Hordern admits, clarifying: 'Missoma is carbon neutral on deliveries and returns, which we track in real time.'

Hordern also debunks other common myths when it comes to sustainability and jewellery, explaining that 100% recycled gold and silver simply doesn't exist: 'Recycling policies differ between counties, it's all too ambiguous,' she says. 'We make sure everything comes from the same supply chain, but that has taken a really long time. We also publish details about our partnered factories on our website: how many workers they have, what social policies they have in place, if they use recycled water etc. Out of the six Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC)-audited factories we work with, we helped two of them get to that place.'

A post shared by Missoma Jewellery (@missomalondon)

In an Instagram-age riddled with hypocrisy and performative actions, it's understandable why some brands feel their authenticity is often overlooked. ‘Our sustainable packaging took a year to develop. Then we had customers complaining that it wasn’t as nice,' Hordern notes, explaining that, more than anything, Missoma is focussed on staying true to its commitment to being 'responsible as possible'. 'We believe everything is about improvement not perfection, so we're realistic about setting goals to make sure we achieve them,' she adds. ‘This is the one area where it’s not a competition between us and other brands. Everybody wins.’