Martine Ali's Jewelry Is Fit for Downtown It Girls—And Kendrick Lamar - Vogue.com
Who would have thought that the dorky wallet chain could ever be cool again? Or that Kendrick Lamar would perform in a silver choker at the 2018 Grammy Awards? Martine Ali can claim credit for both. The New York–based designer has been capturing the hearts of downtown It girls and celebrities thanks to her sleek, industrial-influenced silver jewelry. Over the past few years, she has reimagined dated yet classic pieces like ID bracelets, transformed standard keychains into sleek earrings, and yes, even successfully rebranded that wallet chain into a double-tap must-have.
Her focus on modular, self-customizable pieces—the wearer can attach and detach links and chains to make them shorter or longer—has helped her gain Lamar as a steady client. For his album Damn, Ali created what she termed as a “jewelry wardrobe” for the rapper, adorning him in a heavy metal choker and chain bracelets—a look that worked well for the musician, whom Ali described as “not fussy.”
Ali has been working with jewelry since her Chicago childhood, when a babysitter brought her to the bead counter at a craft store; not long after, her mother began wearing her jewelry to work. “Her friends would buy it!” Ali remembers. “As a kid, I would be having these trunk shows. From early on, I was like, ‘Wow, I can make money from this.’ I was seeing a return for my work and my ideas. It was always my after-school job.” Eventually, Ali moved to New York and began interning at DKNY. By chance, a fashion editor from the company asked her about her jewelry in an elevator; soon, Ali was hired to design for the brand.
Five years later, after she “felt like I had hit a glass ceiling,” she set out on her own with her eponymous label, though for a few years, she says, she “was broke and doing odd jobs to get by.” She credits her eventual breakthrough to Instagram: “I don't have a huge following but I think I have the right people looking,” Ali says. “I think that is because I have a visual sensibility, and that expands beyond the jewelry.” Her pieces caught the eye of stores, as well as stylists (“Well, assistants of stylists,” says Ali), and soon her jewelry was stocked in Opening Ceremony (“That opened tremendous doors,” she says) and worn by Lady Gaga. Now, Ali’s list of stocklists has grown locally and internationally, and her clientele has expanded to include Rihanna, as well as up-and-coming rappers like GoldLink and Brent Faiyaz.
But even as her popularity increases, Ali’s design philosophy remains unchanged. “I’m not the type of designer who premeditates it. I don’t sketch out stuff of how I want it to work,” she says. “A big reason why I think my jewelry is distinct is because I don’t think so hard about it.”
