Mejuri: Drafting a New Sustainability Roadmap
SoF Watches & Jewellery download
This article first appeared in the special edition of The State of Fashion: Watches and Jewellery, co-published by The Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company. To learn more and download a copy of the report, click here.
Direct-to-consumer fine jewellery label Mejuri had sustainability and innovation built into its brand DNA from the beginning, says co-founder and former engineer Noura Sakkijha. At the time of its Series B funding, Net-a-Porter founder and investor Natalie Massenet, whose fund Imaginary participated in the round, said the brand’s affordable prices and socially responsible sourcing model were “set to disrupt the industry.” To date, Sakkijha has attracted over $48 million in venture capital funding for the brand.
Known for its female-centric designs — of which around 75 percent are bought by women as self-purchases or gifts for friends — and innovative product drop model, Mejuri sources exclusively from either Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC)-certified suppliers or family-owned businesses near the brand’s headquarters of Toronto, Canada. As she looks ahead to the next five years, Sakkijha says that while existing infrastructures can facilitate initial steps towards improving the industry’s impact, the next generation of jewellery brands have an opportunity to grow if they look beyond existing sustainability frameworks, dig deeper into their supply chain and draft their own roadmaps for change.
BoF: Concerns for the environment and workers across the industry’s value chains have been put even further under the spotlight by the pandemic, yet the jewellery sector has been criticised as one of the slowest to implement change. How do you see this tension point around sustainability becoming an opportunity for jewellery brands?
