Pliers & String Designer Marina Ivanova

At home w/ a bit of familiar “clay”: fabric


Originally from Bulgaria, I’m thankful to have grown up surrounded by makers. Both of my babas – grandmothers – were fond of the old traditions, those of the hands; keen on teaching me crochet, knitting and needlepoint.

When I was ten my immediate family and I fled for Italy during the fall of the communist bloc in 1989.

Years later, having moved to Los Angeles, I brought my own modern, architectural reinvention of my babas’ Turkic aesthetic to GUESS? – where I designed over a thousand pieces sold domestically and worldwide.

Throughout my time working in global fashion, however, I kept thinking of them – of my babas, who taught me to work with string and yarn, hooks and pliers. . . .

Pliers & String Jewelry Atelier is dedicated to their memory.


sincerely—— MARINA IVANOVA



w/ work seen in:

   Anthropologie
   Bloomingdale‘s
   Belle Armoire
   The Buckle
   Cottage Hill
   Dear Handmade Life
   Dillard‘s
   Fred Segal (Ron Herman)
   G by GUESS
   Guess
   Macy‘s
   Nordstrom