Margot McKinney’s First U.S. Boutique Offers “Treats for the Senses”

By Karen Dybis | May 27, 2025

The first U.S. boutique for Australian jewelry brand Margot McKinney, located inside the Peninsula Beverly Hills, offers a portal to the designer’s favorite color, motifs, and gemstone jewelry.

McKinney says the April opening of this first independent store outside Australia was a milestone for her brand, which evolved from a giftware business started by McKinney’s great-great-grandfather in the 1800s.

The jewelry designer brought the signature kelly green color from her Brisbane flagship store—affectionately known as the Green Door—to the Southern California location. Both shops were designed as a haven from the outside world, she explains.

*Chinoiserie-style teal botanical wallpaper and the brand’s signature color, kelly green, are predominant features of the Margot McKinney boutique in Beverly Hills.*

“The green finishes envelop the visitor in a calming, soothing ambience,” says McKinney. “And so the new store feels very similar—calming, quiet, and irresistibly inviting. It’s the perfect setting for the jewelry to speak for itself with charisma and confidence.”

The Peninsula boutique features gloss lacquer accents, elegant leopard print chairs, and chinoiserie-inspired wallpaper with floral and exotic-bird motifs. While the design elements are meant to work in harmony, McKinney considers that wallpaper the boutique’s standout feature.

“It is in a teal color, which works well with the kelly green cabinetry and trims,” she says. “It is at once playful and yet timelessly element, and I love its quirky celebration of the boundless beauty to be found in nature.”

McKinney looks forward to her U.S. clients learning how much care she gives to selecting gemstones. The story behind each gem creates the magic in her jewelry, she says.

For example, the pearls McKinney uses come from Australia’s only independently owned pearl farm, located in East Arnhem Land in the country’s remote north. McKinney makes the long and demanding journey there as often as she can to take part in the pearl harvest.

McKinney boutique exterior — *McKinney says she wants her boutiques to spark curiosity, and for that interest to be rewarded when new or longtime clients come inside to experience the jewelry.*

Her love for Australia is present throughout the new boutique, starting with the green color that pays tribute to her homeland.

“It takes me on a journey to the lush, verdant rain forests of tropical north Queensland, teeming with life and possibilities,” McKinney says.

Reflecting who she is as a designer, the new U.S. store also offers an environment where McKinney’s jewelry is showcased for a new group of collectors. She wants to warmly invite them in, and then reward them for their curiosity.

“Above all, I want them to feel welcome,” McKinney says. “I want them to sense that this is a cosseting and intimate space that contains many wonderful and enchanting treats for the senses.”

Since 2007, Margot McKinney jewelry has been available in the United States at luxury department stores Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. McKinney says recent demand for fine jewelry made it possible for her to expand the brand’s retail presence.

For a limited time, the U.S. boutique’s centerpiece is McKinney’s Marina collier, which she created for her debut at the TEFAF Maastricht art fair. The Marina features a 241.14 ct. cushion-cut green beryl and large baroque pearl suspended from a 65.72 ct. aquamarine, as well as an arrangement of green tourmaline, small diamonds, South Sea pearls, sapphires, paraibas, and tsavorites.

Top: Interior of Margot McKinney’s recently opened boutique inside the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel (photos courtesy of Margot McKinney)