We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marrin Costello. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marrin below.

Marrin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

The Marrin Costello brand was born of a childhood hobby. When I was only 7 years of age, my aunt sent me a bead kit for Christmas — and I fell in love with the art of making jewelry. For the next decade or so, I immersed myself into the craft and organically grew what would become an internationally known brand. In grammar school I sold my designs on consignment to local boutiques, in high school I made many of my classmates’ prom jewelry, and in college my pieces were featured on American Idol. That was the first moment through which I saw my hobby as a business with potential, and the brand was officially born.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

The Marrin Costello Jewelry journey is one with over 2 decades of experience. We have now become an internationally recognized brand that is multifaceted — combining an entrepreneurial podcast called Marrin Costello Radio, a business consulting firm, and the Marrin Costello Jewelry brand — with accessories at its core. Our product-based jewelry brand solves for a *ton* of problems and white space in the industry. Not only is the product hypoallergenic, water resistant, and non tarnish, but it is also crafted of heirloom quality, made to last a lifetime — making the products fully sustainable. We use all recycled, recyclable, and reusable products for each of our shipping, packaging, and collateral items — and also plant a tree for each item purchased — both through us directly, or through any of our hundreds of wholesale partners throughout the states. What sets us apart from others is the elevated, classy, and sophisticated designs that are curated in an edgy fashion — dubbing Marrin Costello Jewelry as the ‘Little Black Dress of Jewelry Brands.’

Marrin Costello is an American businesswoman + designer + brand architect. Her career as a creative began at age seven, after receiving a bead kit for Christmas. Selling her creations at San Francisco Bay Area craft faires and local boutique retailers while in grammar school, Costello’s love for both business and fashion were realized at a very young age.

Less than a decade later, a childhood hobby has transformed into a global luxury lifestyle brand — with jewelry at its core. While studying at the University of California, Los Angeles, Costello’s collection was featured on American Idol — and a business was born. The MC collection since been featured in Vogue, Huffington Post, In Style, and US Weekly — and the collection is now carried in upward of 300 boutique and online retailers across the states — including VICI, Lulu’s, and Rachel Zoe’s Curateur.
The MARRIN COSTELLO® women-owned-and-operated team is now headquartered in Tampa, Florida. Designed locally and sourced globally, all things MC come with three promises — intention in purpose and design, excellence in quality and execution, and community built through conversation pieces.

Made of polished and 14k gold-plated stainless steel, the entire MC collection is now completely hypoallergenic + water-resistant + non-tarnish. And as an extension of our sustainability initiative, a tree is also planted for each piece of Marrin Costello Jewelry that is purchased.

At the center of the brand is a mission to be socially conscious, give back as much as possible, and help people feel fearless and fabulous whenever they wear the collection. We hope you love your Marrin Costello Jewelry as much as we do.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

As a community-driven brand, growing and honoring our customer base has been the core of our brand. Whether it is direct to consumer customers, influencers and ambassadors that promote the brand, our retail partners, the Marrin Costello internal team, family and friends, our creative team that helps with our photoshoots and campaigns, or others… our relationships are everything. It is part of our core mission to do right by our community, and to make sure that all touch points people have to the brand are special, memorable, positive, and life-giving.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Any entrepreneur who is in the game for the long haul will tell you that pivoting is inevitable. One of the most memorable times in the brand’s history was during the pandemic — wherein we were not only faced with the challenge of pivoting internally so that our team could remain employed with all of the Covid restrictions for in-person business, but we were also given an opportunity to audit all of our sales channels. We officially launched our famous $25 Sample Sale component to the brand — which was a huge reason for the brand’s success during the pandemic. The second most memorable pivoting memory was moving the brand’s headquarters from Los Angeles to Tampa, Florida. In doing so, we used this physical move as a means to make many changes internally within our team, the brand, and the product. We went from working in many materials to focusing solely on Stainless Steel — thus allowing the product to be fully hypoallergenic, water resistant, sustainable, rust resistant, and non tarnish. Secondarily, we moved all of our wholesale relationships internally, and were able to better connect one-on-one with our retailers, store employees, and brand advocates. This helped us hugely in reconnecting with our community, and building an even stronger customer base — direct to consumer and wholesale customers alike.

Contact Info:

• Website: marrincostello.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marrincostellojewelry/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marrincostellojewelry
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marrin-costello-9498a150/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MARRINCOSTELLO
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@marrincostellojewelry/videos
• Other: PODCAST: https://open.spotify.com/show/5wUS0mZ8H5m4bCwjVaUdLl?si=6815ec45ee1a4eb9

Image Credits
Credit for all images: Marrin Costello LLC