Mejuri has been rewriting the rules of jewelry for more than a decade.

Long before self-purchase became a marketing buzzword, the Toronto-founded brand was encouraging women to "buy themselves the damn diamond," celebrate their own milestones, and stop waiting for permission to gift themselves.

At the time, the idea felt radical.

Jewelry was still largely marketed as something you received to mark an engagement, anniversary, or major life event. Mejuri offered a different perspective: what if women bought jewelry for themselves?

According to the company, more than 50% of Mejuri purchases are still made by customers buying for themselves — a figure that has held, and arguably strengthened, even as the brand has expanded into higher price points.

It’s worth noting that this philosophy emerged years before British Vogue headlines like “ Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” sparked conversation and went viral, and before concepts such as divorce rings entered the cultural mainstream.

In many ways, Mejuri’s message arrived before the culture caught up.

That belief remains at the heart of the business. But as Mejuri approaches its second decade — with 61 stores globally, more than three million customers, and an expanding international footprint — founder and CEO Noura Sakkijha is focused on something bigger: building a legacy brand.

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A third-generation jeweler, Sakkijha founded Mejuri in January 2015 alongside her husband, Majed Masad, who serves as the company's COO.

Sakkijha grew up immersed in the industry she would later challenge. Rather than rejecting traditional jewelry codes, she reinterpreted them for a new generation of consumers.

I first interviewed Sakkijha in 2020 , at the height of the pandemic. When we met again this spring, the conversation had evolved.

"When we met six years ago, we were very much talking about self-purchase and carving a new path," says Sakkijha. "The foundation is the same. The values stay true. What has evolved is how we bring them to life."

That evolution is visible across every part of the business.

What began as a direct-to-consumer disruptor has grown into a global omnichannel brand with more than 60 stores across North America, the U.K., Australia, and the Middle East. Recent expansion has included markets such as London, Kuwait City, Sydney, and Melbourne, with additional openings planned in Los Angeles and Illinois. Approximately half of monthly revenue now comes from returning customers — a metric Sakkijha sees as one of the clearest indicators of brand health.

Over the past decade, Mejuri has evolved from a company challenging the jewelry industry to one helping define it.

As Sakkijha puts it, the company has evolved alongside changing consumer behaviors, market realities, and industry constraints while maintaining the same North Star. “The water level has changed for everyone,” she notes, but the core principles that guided Mejuri from the beginning remain remarkably consistent.

While the category has changed dramatically, Sakkijha says the company has adapted to new customer needs, market realities, and industry shifts while maintaining its own drumbeat.

As she explains, the goal was never to be part of a single occasion; it was to become part of customers' everyday lives.

At a time when many brands chase trends, Mejuri has doubled down on what it describes as clean design, thoughtful quality, quiet confidence, and everyday wearability.

Along the way, it has developed a recognizable design language through collections such as Dome, Puzzle and Interconnected. Each assortment is “sensual, sculptural, gestural, and architectural, but always grounded in a sleek, clean aesthetic,” Sakkijha adds.

Dome became an icon. Puzzle introduced a modular system that encouraged collecting and self-expression, building personalized stacks over time (inviting customers to stack by mood, metal or memory, for all the things that make for a life well-lived).

The concept also reflects a shift in how the company thinks about milestones: it’s about the everyday achievements, personal victories, and self-defined celebrations.

The idea resonates deeply with customers.

One customer shared that after undergoing a mastectomy and celebrating being cancer-free, she visited a Mejuri store during the holiday season and purchased several pieces to mark the occasion.

"For the first time in a long time, I felt like me again," the customer wrote.

Another purchased what she calls her "founder ring" to celebrate launching her own company.

That philosophy extends beyond product and into the retail experience itself.

In most Mejuri stores, jewelry isn't hidden behind glass cases. Customers are encouraged to touch, try on, stack, and explore pieces freely.

"When we started, people thought we were crazy," says Sakkijha. "Part of the approachability is wanting people to come in, touch and feel the jewelry."

The decision wasn’t simply a merchandising choice, it reflected a broader belief about luxury itself.

Traditional luxury often creates distance between customer and product. By removing the glass barriers, the company made fine jewelry feel approachable, interactive, and part of everyday life rather than something reserved for special occasions.

"I always explain Mejuri as the customer's friend who's chic but knows a lot more about jewelry," says Sakkijha.

That mindset has also shaped how the company chose to scale. While wholesale may have accelerated growth early on, Mejuri prioritized building direct relationships with customers and maintaining control over the brand experience. It was a slower, more deliberate path, but one that reinforced consistency across every customer touchpoint.

As e-commerce accelerated, it helped propel the business forward. At the same time, retail became increasingly important, as people still want to experience jewelry in person.

Today, the brand’s retail footprint extends beyond its own stores through select shop-in-shop partnerships with retailers including Holt Renfrew in Canada and Selfridges in London.

That balance between digital convenience and physical connection continues to shape the company’s strategy today. Mejuri now generates roughly half of its revenue from retail and half from e-commerce. The company has tripled in size over the past five years and continues to grow at the premium end of the market.

While Mejuri built its reputation in fine jewelry, the brand has steadily expanded its material assortment over the years, introducing everything from sterling silver and gold vermeil to titanium, platinum, lab-grown diamonds, pearls, enamel, and most recently, steel.

For Sakkijha, new categories only make sense if they align with the same philosophy that has guided the company from the beginning: creating jewelry that is intentional, comfortable, and designed for everyday life.

The thinking can also be seen in Play, a collection inspired by women in sport and designed for movement.

The company has also continued to invest in sustainability and innovation. These values reflect the same transparency that has defined Mejuri from the beginning. Through its exclusive partnership with Salmon Gold™, the company sources fully traceable gold through regenerative re-mining practices that help restore waterways and salmon habitats across North America.

Yet for all the growth, expansion, trust, and product innovation, Sakkijha believes the company's success comes down to something much simpler: conviction.

Early in Mejuri's journey, she remembers someone questioning whether the business would work.

"I remember looking him in the eyes and saying, 'This is going to be very big,'" she says. "You have to have that level of crazy conviction."

Yet Sakkijha is equally skeptical of overnight success narratives. She believes deeply in the compounding effect: showing up consistently, making incremental improvements, and allowing momentum to build over time.

It’s a mindset that has helped the company navigate a dramatically different environment than the one it entered in 2015.

Through everything that has evolved — from customer expectations and retail to the economics of the industry — Mejuri has continued to adapt while staying anchored to the same core principles that defined it from the beginning.

And as the company enters its next chapter, Sakkijha's ambition extends far beyond building a successful jewelry business.

"I want Mejuri to be so much bigger than me," she says.