Much has happened since designer Shayba Díaz Muhammad started her jewelry line, Mahnal, in 2016. Over the last two years, she’s moved the business into a studio in the former Garment District and hired her first two employees. In November, she began limiting the days when customers could order online through mahnal.com. It might seem counterintuitive—especially during the holiday season—but it’s one way in which Díaz Muhammad seeks to balance her love of jewelry design with her roles as wife and mother.
What’s your creative process like? I approach design one of two ways. I’ll have an idea or an intention about a message that I want to share. I’ll go through this exercise of asking myself, If I could hold this word or idea in my hand, what would it look like? Sometimes I’ll see something that I find beautiful. It could be a sculpture, a building, or something in nature, and I’ll take inspiration and work in the opposite direction.
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Tell me about your recent collections. I released three at one time: the Salsaal, Vine, and Maraya collections. Salsaal means “mud” or “sounding clay” in Arabic. I started with the word “humility.” As I was developing the concept, three connecting ideas brought the collection together for me: mud, children, and humility. These things are all sort of foundational. I love gardening; you put the seed down, and it germinates and something beautiful comes up from that. Childhood is that foundational level that’s really important to how we are shaped as adults, and humility, I believe, is a foundational element to building good character. I love when concepts connect in ways that you don’t expect.
Are all of your pieces made from solid brass? As of now, but we have plans to expand into gold. I’ve had customers who love the jewelry, but they may have a [metal] sensitivity and can only wear gold. I’d like to be able to offer that to those customers. All the pieces are meant to be heirloom pieces, and brass jewelry does allow you to have affordable heirloom pieces because it’s so durable, but I think there’s something irresistible about gold.
How did the pandemic affect your business? It completely transformed the way that I’ve had to do business, which is becoming an online business. Before the pandemic, my entire stream of revenue was doing in-person events.
Has your work changed since you started making jewelry? One of the biggest changes is that the website now has open days and closed days. For most of the month, the website isn’t open [for shopping]. I’ve shifted it to make sure I’m practicing those values that I express to women, which is living an intentional life. The website opens up twice a month. We have private shopping on Fridays for those who joined the waitlist, and then on Saturdays during those open periods the website is publicly open. Doing business and being an artist can sometimes kind of clash, so it gives me breathing room.
Why did you make that decision? I started to feel like I was prioritizing business more than the things I value most, which is being a mom and a wife. This is a model that I think will work really well for me.
What have been some of your biggest milestones? I’d say one of my biggest milestones was hiring team members for the first time [in 2020]. That definitely has been teaching me how to delegate and how to document. We always hear about the starving artist and about how business and art don’t mix. There are a lot of messages that we as artists internalize, so learning that there could be a different way to do it has been the biggest milestone.
