20 years is a long time to listen. And for Mariele Ivy, founder of Young in the Mountains, two decades of making jewelry have been exactly that—an extended, devoted act of listening. To materials, to mythology, to those who come to her carrying stories they're not quite sure how to tell.
This year marks that milestone anniversary, and Mariele is offering that library of knowledge and inspiration to people wanting to craft a story they can wear. Though Young in the Mountains has always been national in reach, 93% of her engagement ring and jewelry buyers live outside the Denver metro area. Mariele is now opening her Boulder atelier to clients for an intimate, deeply personal new offering: interpretive talisman jewelry, designed in conversation, built around the private symbols of your life.
Think of it as part jeweler's office, part sacred studio. Clients can book an exclusive meeting with Mariele in her atelier, where the design process begins not with a gemstone, but with a story. What are you celebrating? What are you releasing? What image, word, or feeling has been living quietly at the center of something important? Mariele laughs that she sometimes feels more like an art therapist than a jeweler, and that's not entirely a joke. She has a rare gift for holding space, for asking the question that cracks things open, and for translating what she finds there into wearable form.
She draws from a deep well of symbolism, anthropology, fashion, art history, and appreciation for the natural world and all its organic forms.
She calls these pieces supercharged talismans, and the language is deliberate. Rooted in the concept of sacrament. The physical and tangible expression of an inward and spiritual truth. Her talismans are made to render the invisible real. Celebration, mourning, transition, becoming: these are the mythologies of ordinary lives, and Mariele has spent her career proving that jewelry is one of the oldest and most powerful vessels for carrying them.
That vessel, in her hands, is also a clean one. Even before the jewelry line, Mariele’s early artistic practices were always celebrating recycled materials, and that commitment has only deepened over time through Young In The Mountains. Her sourcing is under constant review according to the advances of the day. Mariele traces the provenance of almost every stone, works exclusively with American-mined inlay stones, and sources diamonds and gold from post-consumer or verified origins. She is particularly known for Montana sapphires, a stone found close to her childhood home. In order to make something sacred for someone, she believes, the path of the material itself must be clean. She also welcomes clients to bring their own gold, diamonds, or gemstones to be reimagined. Repurposing heirlooms into something current and powerful, with the lightest possible footprint.
Her design process is, by her own admission, sticky. She follows a theme to its bones, works it until it yields something unmistakable. Anyone who has followed her work knows: you can spot a Young in the Mountains piece across a room. That cohesion is no accident. It's the result of deep focus, guided always by an innate sense of the material's alchemy.
As the world feels more scattered, Mariele is leaning toward intimacy. Spaces for studio consultations are limited and very much worth the wait. This is jewelry as a love note made with intention, worn with meaning, and sent rippling quietly into the world.
Learn more and book a session at YoungInTheMountains.com.