PHOTO BY MELANIE SHIH-LAN TJOENG
Stephanie Maris Hicks has always been enamored by the sea. The Kailua-based jewelry designer has family ties to an island in the Greek Cyclades, and she moved to Hawai‘i with her ocean engineer husband to be close to the water. Her Latin maiden name, Maris, means “of the sea,” fitting for her eponymous jewelry line, Maris Pearl (marispearlco.com), which features both delicate and statement pieces showcasing the ocean gemstone in its natural form. “I loved the idea of working solely with naturally shaped baroque pearls from the beginning because of the concept that they are shaped by water, without human interference,” says the Gemological Institute of America-certified pearl specialist. From the inception of her brand, Maris Pearl has donated 5% of every sale to marine conservation initiatives, and in 2018 it partnered with Aegean Rebreath, an organization dedicated to the retrieval of marine litter. This partnership informed its latest Net collection, which features an untreated and undrilled baroque pearl caught in a golden net, inspired by the marine debris caught in industrial fishing nets collected by its NGO partner. “It’s a beautiful interpretation of an ugly problem,” says Hicks. “Mankind has celebrated the beauty of the pearl for millennia—our pieces are made to harness this beauty to raise awareness and, ultimately, to give back to the sea.”
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