Today, London-based premium jewelry brand Otiumberg is opening its first standalone pop-up in Marylebone, London, where it will offer ear-styling appointments and host a piercing party with nearby dermatologist clinic Marylebone Skin. The three-week experiment marks a turning point for the 10-year-old brand, which has built a loyal following through accessible prices and high-touch customer initiatives, including client trunk shows.
Otiumberg was founded in 2016 by sisters Rosanna and Christie Wollenberg, who saw a gap in the market for design-led jewelry that is both affordable and high quality. “We both had loads of piercings, but couldn’t find a brand that spoke to us. There was Tiffany or Topshop, and nothing in between,” says creative director Christie Wollenberg at the brand’s hybrid office-store space in Holland Park (Rosanna had given birth the day before our interview). Otiumberg launched with some huggie hoops, and the brand grew organically through word-of-mouth. “We’ve always been the customer, so our design is very intuitive. And then we realized it wasn’t just for myself and my sister, there was a real demand for Otiumberg’s pieces.”
The brand has grown without external investment, achieving 30% revenue growth in 2025. Prices start at $74 for sterling silver earrings and reach $2,943 for solid gold pavé diamond earrings. Bestsellers include the Roscida Heart hoop earrings ($228 in gold plating), diamond initial tag pendants ($395), made-to-order name pendants ($435), and an array of sculptural ear cuffs (ranging from $160 to $228).
The pop-up in Marylebone is an extension of Otiumberg’s office-store space in West London’s affluent Holland Park neighborhood, which has been a success: store sales grew 90% year-on-year during fiscal 2025, with the store accounting for 15% of the brand’s seven-figure annual revenue. (Wholesale contributes 20%, while direct-to-consumer (DTC) makes up the remaining 65%.)
As Otiumberg celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, it expects physical retail to propel its next stage of growth. “Marylebone is a jewel when it comes to retail. We feel the other brands that are there create beautiful adjacencies,” says Áine McCourt, CEO of Otiumberg. Neighboring stores include Ganni, multi-brand beauty retailer Space NK, and British lifestyle label Toast.
The pop-up is also a precursor to Otiumberg’s first flagship, which is opening this fall on King’s Road, one of the most popular shopping streets in Chelsea. “We expect a higher foot flow [in Marylebone compared to Holland Park], so it will be great training for our staff and give us a taste of what the flagship could be like,” says Wollenberg. “Customer experience is so important to us — making sure the customer feels they’re getting a luxurious experience no matter the price — so I think Marylebone is a training ground for that.”
Retail expansion
Otiumberg’s Holland Park hybrid space, which the brand opened almost three years ago, has played a central role in building its community and understanding its customer.
“Because of the hybrid [retail-office] model, you familiarize yourself with the customer,” says Wollenberg. “A huge amount of how we’ve built a community in Holland Park is word-of-mouth. The local customer is thrilled to have an independent brand around the corner, so our repeat customer rate is really high. They don’t necessarily want to go into Central London, so they’ll drive right outside and pick a gift, then they’re back home in five minutes. [This location is] almost like a discovery destination — you have to either really know where you’re going or just fall upon it.”
The hybrid model has also helped the brand stay customer-centric. “When you’re a small business, it’s so full on and busy, and some days you’re just trying to survive,” says McCourt. “It’s so easy to become blind to the customer, but [with this retail-office space] we’re lucky that every day there’s a customer in, and we hear what they like or don’t like.”
McCourt says Otiumberg’s B Corp certification — completed in 2023 — has reinforced that customer centricity. As part of the certification process, brands must engage with their top customers so that B Corp can evaluate how the brand creates value for its customers, including stewardship, ethical marketing, and feedback mechanisms. “It’s been a phenomenal mechanism,” says McCourt. “We’ve taken that attitude to the stores, the pop-ups and to the new flagship, so we’re always getting feedback from customers.”
While the brand has an international base — with the US, Australia, and Germany among its biggest markets after the UK — Otiumberg is focusing on building its presence domestically for now. “While the world is so volatile and can feel quite overwhelming to conquer, I think we have to just focus on the UK — especially with the growth we’ve had here in the last year,” says Wollenberg. “There’s so much more we can do in the UK, hence the pop-up and flagship.”
Reaching the value-driven customer
Otiumberg’s product strategy sits between fashion jewelry and traditional fine jewelry, targeting customers looking for quality pieces at attainable price points. Wollenberg describes Otiumberg as an “advanced contemporary” brand.
The label’s jewelry comes in sterling silver, solid 9-karat gold, and plated 14-karat gold vermeil. The 9-karat gold pieces are the brand’s signature. “Nine-karat gold is such a beautiful material — it’s everlasting, the color is a dusty light gold — and it’s what our customers really come to us for,” she says. “It may be their first gold purchase. It’s really good value in that sense, because they know they’re buying into gold, but it’s at an attainable price.”
Otiumberg recently stopped producing solid 14-karat pieces (there are still some available on the site, but they have no plans to restock them). But the challenge is that, in some parts of the world, such as the US, anything under 10 karats is not recognized as solid gold (9-karat gold is 37.5% pure gold mixed with 62.5% other metals such as copper, silver, or zinc). However, Wollenberg found that customers don’t tend to mind what karat the gold is. “What we found was that the customer purely loves the design, they don’t mind about the karat and they’d actually be happier to pay under £1,000,” she says. With the price of gold rising roughly 147% in the past two years, higher karat jewelry can be harder to justify for aspirational consumers. In this sense, Otiumberg’s focus on 9-karat pieces is a pragmatic way to maintain accessibility.
The pieces are often bought to mark milestones or as gifts. “We always say we’re there for life’s journey. Customers start out in our gold vermeil, then move into their first solid gold purchase,” says McCourt. “People buy Otiumberg because it’s a sentimental purchase — there’s an emotional connection with the piece, and we’re a very giftable brand,” adds Wollenberg. The personalized pieces in particular are popular for gifting.
That focus on gifting has led to Otiumberg’s customers becoming increasingly multigenerational. “We do appointments in-store, and we’ll have a grandmother bringing in all her granddaughters to buy them jewelry. We do trunk shows in the store, or go to people’s home and its mothers and daughters with piercings,” says McCourt.
Trunk shows have been some of the most successful customer initiatives. “The world is very volatile and digital marketing, in particular, got extremely expensive, so we had to pull back from that and go back to grassroots ways of getting the brand out there,” says McCourt. “We started to host these intimate trunk shows, some led by our VIP customers and some led by people in our own networks.” A customer hosting a trunk show would invite between 20 and 30 friends to the Holland Park store to have brunch or drink champagne while shopping, or sometimes the brand will host an event at a client’s house. “We used to shop as a pastime, but we don’t do that anymore. So I think it’s hitting a nerve for customers where bringing together some girlfriends to shop and socialize is made really easy,” says McCourt.
Those personal interactions are central to Otiumberg’s long-term strategy, as it expands its retail footprint and aims to create more brand awareness. For McCourt, growth is less about aggressive rollout plans than meeting customers where they already are. “It’s more about finding where our customers are and showing up there,” she says.
