How ‘Sex and the City’ jewellery designer Mimi So forged her path as an independent creator

Why did you decide to name the brand after yourself?
I knew that if I put my name on it, that meant that I was going to stand behind the brand, the reputation; there’s a difference: it’s not like a façade that you can hide behind. It was about me putting a stake in the ground: this is who I am and this is what I represent. And it was really intimidating because I chose to do that in a very male-dominated industry, in a business that’s on 47th Street in New York City. [Looking back,] I feel like I was a lamb in the lion’s den. I persevered, but I had a lot of people that would come into my store and would say, “When your boss comes in, give him my business card.”

What was your biggest challenge in setting up your store in New York?
I didn’t have the money to show the world that I’m very serious [about what I do] but I had the intent, so we educated our customers. A lot of people discovered me slowly and took me seriously. When you look like you’re 12 when you’re 21, it’s hard to be taken seriously, but over time, I developed a thick skin. I was [so deep] in my own universe of what I wanted to create that I made what I would wear [myself].

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Your jewellery was featured in the TV show Sex and the City. How did that happen?
A lot of the stylists had started coming to me at my store [to source jewellery—this is before the show was a hit]. I believe in supporting my friends and what they are doing. I used to carry my jewellery in a brown bag after [work] hours, and the shoots used to be at this dark warehouse kind of place. And I kept muttering to myself, “This is a bad idea; you’re going to get mugged.” And then Sex and the City became a thing.

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Tell us about Richemont offering to buy a stake in your company.
It was after I had styled quite a lot of Hollywood A-listers on the red carpet. At that time, [red carpet] jewellery used to be quite heavy. I was the first jewellery designer to pioneer fashionable fine jewellery on the red carpet; it was unheard of, because it [red carpet jewellery] was always very classic, but a lot of fashion designers were interested because they wanted jewellery that did not compete with their clothing.

[The way] Richemont found me was very organic: the celebrities, the stylists, the whole thing was just so powerful. So they [Richemont] courted me. They wanted me to help them with Cartier and I could not move to Paris—I had a small business here in New York that I loved. So after a long romance, I decided that I would sell a portion of the company to Richemont in 2004, and I consulted with the group as a designer for Cartier, Piaget and Montblanc. [After the acquisition, I felt like] I was living on a plane. It was fast and furious. And in 2006, we were opening in Tokyo, it was crazy. It felt like the Super Bowl, but like every day. 

But then you bought back your shares from Richemont in 2007. Why and how did that happen?
All major conglomerates at some point need to buy the majority and have ownership. And I wasn’t ready for that. This is where I can really speak about being a woman and being a young mom, a young bride and having a family. It was like having two husbands: your real husband and your business husband, the [Richemont] group. It would have meant that the group would decide if I was on the road all the time, or if I’m opening up in lots of stores, and I just didn’t want to be an absent mom. I felt it was very important that, as a woman, I made this commitment to give birth to a child. This was tricky, and I just felt like maybe the time wasn’t right [to sell], so I decided that I wouldn’t sell the majority share to the company and would keep our independence, ownership and creativity.

Once you sell to a really large conglomerate, as incredible as that sounds, it’s also stifling. It is glamorous and glorious, and everything that they say it is, but you’d better be ready for that trade-off. So if I was famous for getting in, I was even more famous for leaving, because no one does that. It was pretty nice to have someone that has an endless chequebook, so I ate a lot of ramen for a long time to keep the business going and to ensure my company was going to have that independence. And I think I’m really, really proud of that, because for a female owner, that’s rare. That’s so rare.

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