At Home: Jewelry Designer Michelle Marocco's Studio

Inspired by an 18th-century fishing cottage in France, Michelle Marocco transformed a cookie-cutter room in her Carmel home into an artfully distressed place to make jewelry worn by the likes of Russell Brand, Nicole Scherzinger, and Elaine Irwin. Her line, Niyama, mixes beads, diamonds, and wood pieces with leather cording. “It has a real traveled feel,” she says. The same can be said of this space, a product of 40 days of labor by the mega-tasking single mother of two.

LIGHTS
The industrial look of these “trouble lights,” common in mechanics’ garages, spoke to the designer.

BRACKETS
Mismatched shelving hardware came from Colonial Antiques, near Zionsville.

INFINITY SYMBOL
The Niyama logo incorporates the universally recognized figure-eight.

FLOOR
Marocco distressed the floors herself with a belt sander. “I don’t recommend that. It’s so hard,” she says.

CEILING
Using scaffolding, Marocco called on her experience as an oil painter to remake the ceiling with her own mix of Italian fresco plaster and dry pigment.

PAINTING
Marocco painted this piece, inspired by meditation—a single focal point.

TABLE
A Guatemalan piece from a design center in California.

CURTAINS
Fashioned from 100-year-old hemp fabric.

CABINET
This chest, made of wood from old boats, holds Marocco’s beads.

JEWELRY
Niyama pieces are meant to be layered. “Less is not more; more is better,” Marocco says.

Photo by Tony Valainis

This article appeared in the October 2013 issue.