2005 The beginning……After graduating from the Lausanne ECAL for ‘Beaux Arts’, designer Marielle Byworth spent a year in London living with her new family the Byworth’s. Her two new brother in-laws, jewellery designers and traders would often consult her in the creation of new pieces. It was these conversations and debates that echoed in the early days of looking out over the Tokyo skyline…

… Life was becoming very zen. Bikram yoga, meditation, combined with simple and healthy eating allowing Marielle to access her spirituality. Touching this resource and drawing on inspiration from diving expeditions to the Maldives and Palau, Marielle began to design simple and organic objects. New friends in Tokyo often remarked on the designs and slowly began commissioning her to design something for them to wear. More and more people became enthused with the eye-catching pieces slowly interspersing themselves into Tokyo’s nightlife. But it was not until later that year in St Tropez when Marielle was stopped by celebrities and sun worshippers alike to comment on her ‘magnificent designs’, that a star was born….. The first line of jewellery was named Elema and includes the brand’s signature ‘Elema’ bracelet that was later worn to the 2006 Miss Universe contest by Kurara Shibana.
2006 July 2006 saw the creation of the Marijoli company and quickly things started to snowball; Miss Universe Japan started to use Marijoli in style shoots, magazines requested interviews with Marielle and celebrities as widely reknowned as Nelly Furtado, Madonna, Kate Moss, and China Forbes all became fans. And in September of that year the brand was launched officially in Tokyo during fashion week hot on the heels of a catwalk show and after party called ‘Summer, hit me!’ where Marijoli launched their minicapsule bikini that was produced in Brazil.
2007 2007 was the year of collaborations, both in collections and design launch parties. First up was ‘Party in the Flower’, a collaboration with the celebrity designer and artist Takako Ikehata held in Mado Lounge, the 52Floor and highest club in all of Tokyo. The show featured the usual fashion show with seven beautiful Japanese models, and several 100inch plasmas displaying the history up of Marijoli up until then.

That was followed by the largest collaboration to date, the Ma&Ma swimwear line which was created with MariaH designer Maria Heitanen, and was quickly taken up by Japanese department stores Isetan and United Arrows. The launch party for Ma&Ma coincided with Tokyo fashion week and sold out the MaChambre nightclub (logo design and name created by Marielle) which opened a few months before.

Post these two shows, the collaborations started coming thicker and faster with talents as varied as Julien David, Olivier Shawalder, Ricci K, Kaori Kasso, and Antoine Wagner.

Towards the end of the year Marijoli’s first website was launched in tandem with a blog called MAbackstage and a facebook fan page which followed the escapades of the star of the show, Marielle Byworth, as well as providing invitations to the future parties that were due to launch the products around the world. On top of this a second line of jewellery was launched expanding on the signature line of Elema, to include earrings and rings for the first time.
2008 At the beginning of 2008, Marielle decided to dig deeper into her spiritual side. Separating herself from the trappings of the party lifestyle, she isolated herself for four months to embark on an intensive yoga program that she followed to yogi status. This gave her the opportunity to centre her activity and find clarity in her direction.

Feeling refreshed and intensely more spiritual, Marielle started work on the new catalogue for Marijoli with the theme ‘Pure of Spirit’. Even a catalogue needs a launch party and this was held at the Swiss Embassy as it had been a collaboration with Swiss stylist Olivier Schwalder and Japanese photographer Namiko Kitaura under the art direction of Yuko Watanabe. The afterparty was recorded and broadcasted on FTV at “ le Baron de Paris “ in Omotesando and on the party scene pages of NUMERO magazine.

The year ended with a collaboration with Abilgail Terrien on a line of baby bracelets for kids for distribution on the new online shop called Abiloves.
2009 By 2009, things really were starting to take shape. You can now find Marijoli jewelry in concept stores in Geneva, Paris, London, San Diego and Istanbul as well as many outlets in Tokyo including the world reknowned Restir, Beams and Tomorrowland.

The team continues to grow the effort and the brand globally as well as add another brand this year, ‘Marielle Byworth’ which looks back to the roots of Marijoli working initially on a bespoke basis. The first line of which was commissioned by the new department store in Hong Kong ‘Brother and Sister’, melding funky style with the traditional elegance of Marijoli, and has already been a huge hit with Marijoli’s previous clients.

The Christmas launch of designers Entourage in Beirut will stock Marielle Byworth and Marijoli collection and will be the main point of distribution into the whole of the Middle East. Marielle Byworth is now exceptionally well positioned for a global recovery… Happy Holidays
2010 Coming…