How I Got Here: Mindi Mond on the Slow Burn It Took to Build Her Brand

By Karen Dybis | December 17, 2025

Mindi Mond’s home office is like a geology museum with examples of the stones she loves all around her. But they’re not diamonds, rubies, or pearls. They’re geodes, minerals, and crystals.

Mond’s pride and joy is the nearly 400-pound pyrite she has in one corner. She hired a steel company to construct a weight-bearing stand for the sparkly beauty. Every sample she collects is labeled and loved, Mond says.

They also honor the woman who taught Mond how to build such an impressive collection: her mom.

“My mother introduced me to stones. When she loved something, she collected it,” Mond says. “She was a big inspiration in my life. She was so artistic and out of the box in everything she did. If she wanted a stone wall built by our house, she’d collect all the kids to bring her rocks, mix the cement herself, and we’d build it together.”

Mindi Mond Tourmaline Earrings — *Mindi Mond New York Paraiba Tourmaline Earrings with 109.7 cts. t.w. paraiba tourmalines and 1.72 cts. t.w. diamonds in 18k white gold, price on request*

Mond continues to build on her mother’s rock-loving legacy with her eponymous jewelry brand, which blends her expertise in estate and antique jewelry with new collections she designs.

She founded Mindi Mond New York in 2009 following a career in New York City’s garment industry and while raising her two children. With her early success with jewelry in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, Mond says she continues to feel surprised and gratified by customers’ reception and that of jewelry stores that stock her work.

“Those magazine experiences gave me more confidence. I had a young family. I didn’t have a big budget to invest,” Mond says. “But my husband encouraged me to give jewelry a shot. Having two major editors believe in me wasn’t an accident, he’d say.”

Mond also credits her mother with giving her a view into what a life in jewelry might look like from an early age. Her mom loved estate and antique jewelry, and Mond, as the youngest of four children, often was dragged along to private estate-company showrooms.

Mindi Mond Crystal Medallion — *Diamond Crystal Shaker Medallion pendant necklace with 11.5 cts. t.w. old European diamonds in platinum and an adjustable 18k gold chain, $48,800*

“I was 6 or 7, and I remember to this day sitting and playing on the floor at these dealers in enormous spaces while my mother went through the new acquisitions that they brought,” Mond says. “She was friendly with them, so they let her rummage through these big boxes and find the pieces she loved.”

Mond joined the garment industry in 1985 and continued through 1997 when she got married and began her family. She describes these jobs as volume-based, moderately priced clothing brands—and she was happy to switch roles to full-time mom when her babies were born.

However, by the time those same darling toddlers got into preschool, Mond says she was ready to think about her career again.

“Preschool was what, four or five hours? I would go antiquing and I started to explore,” Mond says. “I’d go to the estate dealers my mother knew and they’d let me in because I was Shirley’s daughter.”

Mindi Mond Watermelon Earrings — *Bicolor watermelon tourmaline earrings with 55.67 cts. t.w. watermelon tourmalines and 7.01 cts. t.w. round brilliant diamonds in 18k yellow gold, price on request*

That is how Mindi Mond New York came to be: Mond bought antique gems and finished pieces to take apart and repurpose. She would make herself a pair of earrings or a necklace from an old brooch. Then, someone else would see her new work and ask her where they could find something like it.

“I knew bench jewelers who could do this kind of work—you have to be an old-timer who knows how to work with these kinds of pieces. You have to know where you can or cannot apply heat, or what you need lasers for,” Mond says.

After selling a few pieces, her dealer friends began to encourage Mond to start her own jewelry business. And, lo and behold, those first finished pieces turned into a small jewelry collection. That collection needed a website, so Mond built one. She pursued and got into 1stDibs, and jewelry editors started to notice her work.

Let’s just say having your earliest jewelry pieces show up on Gigi Hadid helps establish your new brand pretty quickly, Mond says. Because her brand was about to take off, Mond started taking jewelry classes, jumping into grading, and learning from appraisers. And one retailer led to another, she says.

“I cherish the retailers that appreciate what I’ve created and gave me a chance. I take that really seriously. I go to stores. I meet with their teams. I want them to get to know me and learn about the jewelry. They can text me anytime,” Mond says. “It’s been a lot of fun. It’s also been a lot of hard work, but it doesn’t feel like hard work when you love it.”

Top: Mindi Mond grew out of her early days jewelry shopping with her mom and working in the garment district to become a well-established jeweler. (Photos courtesy of Mindi Mond New York)