The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Konstantina Mahlia of Malia Collection

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

Konstantina Mahlia of Malia Collection Mahliacollection.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Well, hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. My voice is going to cut that end piece that everyone seems to love. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. Be sure to go to youtube.com, Fortress, Chris Voss, all our groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, all the places you

know, and goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Voss. You see my books, The Beacon of Leadership, and other ones there. And also go see the LinkedIn group newsletter and the big 131,000 LinkedIn group. That thing is freaking huge and just keeps growing over there. LinkedIn, if you're not over there, it's really becoming a thing these days. It's quite amazing. Anyway, guys, we have an amazing woman on the show. She is the CEO, founder, and creative director of a company called the Malia Collection. Her name is Konstantina Malia, and she's on the show to us, with us today, to us and with us today, to talk about what she does, how she does it, and how she founded and built her company. Welcome to the show, Konstantina.

How are you? I'm fine, Chris. Nice to be on the show. Thanks for having me. There you go. So give us a rundown. Tell us a little bit about, excuse me, let's start with your plugs first. Tell us your dot coms and where people would find you and look you up on the interwebs.

Sure. I agree with you that LinkedIn is an amazing platform. I'm pretty visible there. Instagram as well. Konstantina Malia on LinkedIn, Malia Collection on Instagram, and Facebook. My website is www.maliacollection.com. I'm known in the industry, in the jewelry industry or the luxury industry as a fine jewelry designer. I think as a creative person, you kind of wear a bunch of hats and people stick you in a box that they can identify easily. Isn't it funny how that works? Yeah. So give us, let's start with your humble beginnings, how you came up through the ranks of life and childhood and stuff like that. You have a Greek

history, I believe, in your background. Yeah, I was actually born in Vancouver, BC. My parents were both Greek immigrants, so I would have been native if I wasn't born on another continent. I was a prep school kid, which gave me a really amazing foundation educationally. And then went to school at the University of Arizona. Was an English major, double honors. Decided I did not want to be a professor, and so I went to the entrepreneurship program and launched my company. Wow. That's pretty amazing. So how long have you been doing this?

16 years now. Wow. 16 years. That's pretty much. And do you only work? I think it was 16. Yeah, not 16. No. You got time. Yeah. We hope so. There you go. There you go. So what 16 years, you work mostly with, who are your clients? Who are the people that you work with the most? Well, my first client was Saks of Savings. Some of the best retailers in North America, which would be Stanley Korshak in Dallas with my men's collection. I think Escort Magazine rates them number one every year after year. A bunch of retailers.

And then I was about 10 years ago, I was showing in Paris and was at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs as well with one of my collections and decided I would rather deal with my clients directly. And I would rather have them have that relationship with me than the retailers. Now it's pretty much just direct to consumer. Oh, wow. So people contact you through your website and they ask to have you create a piece of art for them. How does the workflow go for you? So i kind of ride on the cusp because my pieces in the gold collection are one of a kind and signed by me they are considered art wow it was interesting because i was at a lecture with a professor from yale university a couple of weeks ago here at freeze in los angeles and he was

giving statistics on the art industry and who are the players and how people make it. And he's actually written a book on how to Magnus Resch, Professor Magnus Resch on how to make a business out of being an artist. But I think when I was in the entrepreneurship program at the U of A, they saw that in me. It was very easy for me to create the product. And it was also very easy for me to figure out the marketing, the business structure of it. So they actually asked me to launch a program for them that would integrate creative art and business when I graduated. And I decided to do Malia Collection instead. Tucson is actually home to the largest, yeah, Tucson's home actually to the largest gem show in the world every year. And so I had this incredible audience coming to me, and I didn't have to move a finger.

So that's how I started. Now, you stayed in about your work. I'm taking this off of one of your pages on your work. It should last for lifetimes. My background in luxury has always been about conscientious conservatism in consumerism. Tell us what that means. What does that mean to you, and what does it mean to people who buy your art? conscientious conservatism in consumerism. Tell us what that means. What does that mean to you?

And what does it mean to people who buy your art? I think in a nutshell, it means to me, buy as little as possible and buy the best you can afford and have it last for generations. If we all spent our hard-earned money in that mindset, and I'm not talking just as a luxury product, we would have a very different ecological situation right now we're being taught to just buy more and more and that the more you buy the more gratified you buy you're going to be and i think that's a very self-defeating purpose because when you buy something that's meaningful and beautifully crafted and using artisans who are really disappearing from the plant because they don't have enough work anymore you're investing in our you're investing yourself

and ourselves as a community on a multitude of levels and that to me is conservatism that is being congee thoughtful about what you buy why do you want it how are you going to use it how long are you going to use it for and who's behind behind it? Who are the artisans? Who are the owners of the company? Most of them are a board of directors now. And so there isn't that personal value system built into everything. I really believe in that. When I first started buying furniture for myself, I wanted to buy furniture that would last a lifetime. I bought a lot of Henron Dawn. I bought a lot of Bernhardt. I spent a lot of money for it, but I've had it for 30 years, 20 or 30 years now. Good for you.

And it's still almost as nice. I mean, it's gone through a couple moves, which get your dings in there, but that stuff has been such a bulwark, maybe is the right word. I mean, it's survived moves, it's survived storage, it's survived a lot of different things that I've done with my life. And it still looks as beautiful this day. And I was just like, you know what? I'm not going to buy a Kia. A Kia is going to end up in a landfill and it's so counterproductive. You don't use it in the same way. You don't respect it in the same way. When you know something's being perfectly crafted by somebody who's put all of their best work into it certainly have a different respect for it don't you you do you value it a whole lot more it survives moves a

whole lot more too yeah i recently moved to my storage unit uh one of my storage units that i had from my house in las vegas and the two cheap i bought some ikea tables to go underneath the thing to hold some stereo system under a desk and they didn't survive the move. Those things broke in about five fricking seconds in the truck. All my other expensive furniture and everything else, my chairs, I had a lot of a custom made or custom featured. And yeah, I agree with you. I think people do need to realize, hey, buying a lot of junk that ends up in a landfill and ends up trashing stuff up. So tell us about- It's also a reflection on yourself, right? Because if you respect yourself, you respect what you invest in. It's all reflective, right?

That's a good point. It's an investment. It's like eating good food and eating junk food. And I've been guilty of eating both. So I'm trying to eat good food. So tell us what sort of art pieces do you do? I see a variety on your website, but what are some of the different things you do? Is it mostly for women, or do you do both men and women? No, I did for men, too. It's just I only have so much bandwidth right now, and so I had to make a decision. Stanley Korshak was an amazing anchor of the men's collection,

incredible sales team and support system. But otherwise, it's on me. And that's just finding more retail accounts. My men collectors are extremely loyal. I find it actually easier to work with my men clients. It's sort of like, here's my credit card. You know what I like, just send it to me kind of thing, right? Whereas with women, there's definitely more of a process. When I started a company, it was intended to be a lifestyle brand and that's why i say i'm a creative director not what you can see now but definitely when i'm out in public i'm always wearing my own fashion designs as well and i

found that's actually my best marketing tool too because indelibly people will react to how i'm dressed it's very different but classic at the same time and very feminine but elegant. So that sort of starts a conversation and they notice the jewelry. But when I said I design furniture and do interiors, you kind of need to be carrying around a lookbook, right? It's harder to visualize, whereas as the walking brand, it's much easier to introduce who I am and what I do. And I'm looking at some of your different artwork, bracelets, rings, I believe necklaces or pendants. Right. Yeah. These are really beautiful. Do you do the hand work on these? Cause it looks like there's a lot of work that goes into the labor that make my work have trained since they were teenagers and they're mostly in their sixties. Now they're also a giant breed. Some of them that started with me when I was just out of school,

they've had strokes or they've had health issues. They don't do the work anymore and there's really nobody to replace them. So it's always a constant effort to find the people who are trained appropriately, who can do this level of work. Because even a goldsmith, when they look at my pieces, they're like, they're intimidated. Not very many of them are trained to do this level of work because even a goldsmith, when they look at my pieces, they're like, they're intimidated. Not very many of them are trained to do this kind of work. Yeah. It looks really intricate. Like a lot of stuff went into it.

They're very beautiful. The colors are amazing. This is a really pretty piece, this daemon. I'm known as a colorist too. Like I like really unusual color combinations. And if you look at dozens and dozens of jewelry cases as I have over the years, one thing that people in the industry will say is my work doesn't look like anybody else's. It really stands out, even if you're in the middle of Saks Fifth Avenue,

where my stuff isn't going to jump out at you because it is so different. There you go. Wrap bracelets, necklaces, lariats, gold couture, earrings, charms, bracelets, pendants, necklaces. Yeah, this is really beautiful stuff. And the fine detail on it is what is amazing. I mean, this isn't something you're going to see when you go into one of these box stores. Yeah, it's really fine detail. And it looks like it takes a lot of work.

I also studied symbolism at a grad school level when I was in the English department. And so that carried over into all the jewelry. So all the details you see in the jewelry are actually hidden language. It's kind of like hieroglyphics. When you see the laurel leaf, it has a meaning. When you see the little gold balls, it has a meaning. So they're very karmic and I would say alchemaic it's very intentional the story that i build in each piece and it's all very positive and it's supposed to

be very universal because hieroglyphics as we know were in caves in sudan and they were in caves in australia and they were in caves and you know siberia there it's really curious when you study symbolism, how many of them were exactly the same intention by people at diverse parts of the planet when there was no communication to mean the same thing. Wow. I mean, this stuff is really beautiful. I was looking at this Damien, which I guess is sold out. It's kind of a mask face. Yes, carved out of onyx in Germany for me. And again, there's one village in Germany on the planet that can do that kind of stone carving. Are all these on your website? Are these one-of-a-kind pieces?

Pretty much. Some of the smaller chains are not one-of-a-kind. The neck pieces, the eye charms, the eye rings, some of them are replicable. Most of the time, yes, they're one of a kind. Do you have any advice for artists or people that are in the business, from a business sense, because we do a lot of business interviews. Yeah, and I've been asked to lecture at the university to the business school. I've been asked to lecture to the fashion school. I've been asked to lecture to the art school.

Because as Magnus Retsch has made a career as a professor out of, it's very rare for an artist to actually make it. When I was listening to his lecture, I went up to him afterwards and I said, according to you, I said, I'm not even an anomaly. I don't exist. According to your statistics, that's how few artists make it. And that's how few artists make it to be successful. And so for me, it's because I think I grew up with a business family. And then I was actually the child of immigrants. You had to be successful. And so for me, it's because I think I grew up with a business family and then I was actually in the child of immigrants. You had to be practical. My parents

came with nothing, right? And so you watch them build a life, build a successful life. And I think that was more important even going to business school because that's hands-on. And so it's bred into your life experience. Don't be waste be wasteful for me it's very much part of also being ecological don't be wasteful use everything you and i started the business by myself with nothing so it was definitely bootstrapping it greek families and families of mediterranean origin we began gold jewelry as we know it on the planet that's where it began and it became the currency from crete that became traded around the basin because they figured out how to turn gold into these beautiful things that everything

that everybody wanted it's kind of curious in a way that this is my own trajectory right so it's very traditional even if you come from a very humble background, to give gold is a significant gift. When a baby's born, at a wedding, significant birthdays. And that's because it has an inherent value that's never lost. Part of it, right? You're truly giving a gift to your family member that's going to give them something to hold on to in tough times. When I started the business, I took every little piece I'd had from gifts and I melted them. That's how I made the first pieces of jewelry. So literally recycled it. In the history of humanity, the amount of gold that's being mined and used would fill two Olympic swimming

pools. Holy crap. Yeah. That's how much we recycle it and recycle it. Wow. Yeah. It seems like there would be more, but I don't know. You would think, right? But it's quite impressive how far it goes. Yeah. So what are, do you find that people collect your stuff or just collections? I mean, normally they buy it or is it stuff they gift away or? No, my stuff is really not gifted. I wouldn't give it away either. I went to this really nice jewelry store in Scottsdale. Yeah. And this guy has multi-million dollar pieces.

He caters a lot to sports celebrities and stuff like that. And so I took him some of my first pieces. And he was impressed. I was still in school. And he said, this stuff is amazing. I really appreciate and respect your work. But he says, I can't sell it. This was 2004.

Wow. And I said, why not? And he said, because my client is a very wealthy man who's buying jewelry for his wife or his girlfriend, and he won't understand it. And I took that sort of as a challenge. And sure enough, by getting Saks Fifth Avenue as my first account, I was going direct to the woman. The people that walked into the jewelry department were all women shopping for themselves. And there was never, oh, I have to ask my husband or I'm going to wait till it's my birthday or I'll ask for it for Christmas.

That never, ever happened to me. And some of those people are still buying my jewelry today from the beginning. Wow, that's freaking awesome. And the same thing with the men's collection. I think it's very unorthodox for me to have somebody say, I'm going to buy it for my husband for the most part, 99% of the men buy the jewelry for themselves.

So it's always been, this is something I want. I'm going to buy it. I'm going to please myself. I don't have to ask anybody. This is what I want. And this is who I am. Yeah.

I've had one of the other things that I have that I've collected over the time is leather from a fine leather maker of bags and stuff and briefcases and other things. And they literally have, I've seen the artwork that goes into them, and they literally have a guarantee that like, and we guarantee it for a hundred years or however long you have it, that it won't break or mismanufacture. And the quality of it is so good that people auction for it and bid for it online. You can sometimes sell the pieces for more than

you paid for them. But they're so valuable and their worth is so rich, you wouldn't sell them unless you, I don't know, you're really broke or something. And I've had friends say, we do a lot of reviews here on the Chris Foss Show, so people send us all sorts of products, whether it's phone or you name it, we get it. I look at them in bicycles, speakers, everything. And so, you know, sometimes I give some of it away, the cheap stuff away, but I keep all the nicest stuff for myself. I'd be like, Hey Chris, can I have that product? I'm like, no, that's, that's the good stuff. That's the stuff I keep. I don't give that away. No. So I know that feeling. What other things do we want to touch on your business and how you do it and how consumers can get a hold of you?

Well, I think that even, so the entrepreneurship program that I went to at the U of A was outranked Harvard and Wharton's at that time. We were really, they were really breaking ground in terms of teaching entrepreneurship. 75 of us were admitted to the program. And by Christmas, there was only 35 left. Of the 75 admitted, five were girls. 75 of us were admitted to the program. And by Christmas, there was only 35 left. Of the 75 admitted, five were girls. Of the 35 that graduated, all five girls. And out of the 35 of us that graduated, I would say very few of us actually created a business and are still making a living from the business we started.

Maybe five of us. That's pretty awesome. So the air gets pretty thin. And then the jewelry industry, I'd say there's very few of us. That's pretty awesome. So the air gets pretty thin. And then the jewelry industry, I'd say there's very few of me. Every day I'm meeting jewelers and they're just like, you can't stop what you're doing. Nobody does what you do. Like it's a treasure. It's so unique and it's so special.

Like you have to keep going. So I'm really proud of those achievements. It's thin ground. And to be an entrepreneur and a female is also super tough. It isn't just the male sexism. It's female envy a lot of the time. A lot of women will not support you or be helpful. They're going to try and hold you back. Why do they do that?

I think it's really antiquated belief system that women need to have a man for the most part. And so if they don't have the male admiration they want or the status in society as a wife or a girlfriend or whatever, they see somebody who's got more potential as threat rather than somebody you want to lift up and help succeed. Wow, that's unfortunate. And it's really weird because I went to a girl's school and they weren't like that in my girl's school. All of that was brand new after I went to university. Very interesting. Very interesting

how that whole thing works. I know that's a whole different subject. I know what my girlfriend's attitudes were sometimes with the people they work with. Not to say that I don't have my supportive girlfriends. I do. That's all. The majority probably are not going to be your biggest backers. There you go.

So what else would people know? And what's the best way to reach out to you and either ask you about doing work for them or. Yeah. I even get a people type DM me and buy straight from me. Like literally buy a jacket I'm wearing off of me on Instagram. Oh, wow. Yeah.

It's kind of, it's a real testimonial to me that how much they trust me. Like, here's my credit card, and you're going to send me the jacket. But, yeah, that's one thing. And just my website, of course, LinkedIn. People message me all day long. Yeah. Wow, that's awesome.

So give us your plugs as we go out, where people can find you on the interwebs and order you. Really, go to the website, go to Instagram, send me a message, take a look at all the beautiful things I've created because you're going to be inspired and I hope want to have one of them be a part of your life. So maliacollection.com, Constantina Malia with a K, and pretty much all the social media platforms, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, book, and my website. All right.

Thank you very much for coming on. We really appreciate it, man. This is really amazing, and the artwork is so beautiful. Thanks so much, Chris. Thanks for having me. There you go. And thanks so much for tuning in. Go to YouTube.com, 4chesschrisvoss, hit the bell notification button.

Go to Goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss, order my book. Also go to all of our groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other and we'll see you guys next time. Thanks, Chris.