Shahla Karimi is reimagining what commitment rings look like, and designing them for very modern relationships.
“I’m your ring designer, therapist and friend,” said Karimi, who moved to New York from Louisville, Ky., in 2004, and created her jewelry brand, Shahla Karimi Jewelry, in 2014. A SoHo showroom followed in 2022. “Rather than sell you a diamond and a setting, I design pieces that reflect a couple’s relationship and emotion,” she said.
Karimi, 44, has left a sizable female footprint in New York’s male-dominated diamond industry, and last year, created a self-funded reality series called “Diamond Divas,” 40 one-minute episodes that follow Karimi and the eight women who work in her showroom. They can be viewed on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube.
“I’d never seen a show about women in the diamond industry,” she said, “and what love and relationships look like right now.” This includes rings to celebrate a divorce or to reflect a nonmonogamous relationship — something Karimi and her husband, Tim MacGougan, 42, an app entrepreneur, experimented with themselves, which she mentions on the show.
In the fall, she will open a design studio and store in TriBeCa that will offer customers a range of jewelry, design options, a behind-the-scenes experience and a menu with Persian delicacies, reflecting Karimi’s culture. (Her father is from Iran; her mother is from Kentucky.)
“My parents wanted me to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer,” she said. “Those were the choices they gave Persian women back then. I knew that would never make me happy.”
Karimi, 44, has left a sizable female footprint in New York’s male-dominated diamond industry, and last year, created a self-funded reality series called “Diamond Divas,” 40 one-minute episodes that follow Karimi and the eight women who work in her showroom. They can be viewed on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube.
“I’d never seen a show about women in the diamond industry,” she said, “and what love and relationships look like right now.” This includes rings to celebrate a divorce or to reflect a nonmonogamous relationship — something Karimi and her husband, Tim MacGougan, 42, an app entrepreneur, experimented with themselves, which she mentions on the show.
In the fall, she will open a design studio and store in TriBeCa that will offer customers a range of jewelry, design options, a behind-the-scenes experience and a menu with Persian delicacies, reflecting Karimi’s culture. (Her father is from Iran; her mother is from Kentucky.)
“My parents wanted me to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer,” she said. “Those were the choices they gave Persian women back then. I knew that would never make me happy.”
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