Jamie originally set out to be a titan of Wall Street, studying finance in college at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, images of short skirts and power heels dancing in her head. Yet even as she pivoted and embarked on a 15 year career designing luxury accessories for other brands, she always found time to come back to a love she’d developed in childhood for jewelry.

Jewelry had long been a way for the designer to express herself creatively and assert her independence, so with a strong foundation of lapidaries, manufacturers and other industry contacts and a clear vision for creating pieces that were fun, yet sophisticated, fine yet approachable, in 2021, she launched Mason and Books.

The collection pays homage to Jamie’s family both in the company name (Mason is her daughter’s middle name and MB is her son’s initials) and in her creative process. The bows in her collection were inspired by her daughter’s penchant for bows for daily adornment, while her signature “love bugs” reference her ongoing feelings of endearment and affection for her family.

With an intuitive instinct for unique color combinations, Jamie is often guided by the stones with which she works, choosing to hand select accent stones to play up the colors within opals or juxtaposing inlay with faceted gems.

All Mason and Books pieces are hand-crafted in New York City by a dedicated team of artisans, and Jamie takes a very hands-on approach at all stages of the design and fabrication process. She loves the creative freedom involved in designing her own collection and running her own business and she has an innate intuition for the evolution of the brand.

She insists on being passionate about every piece she makes—if she’s not passionate about it, then it doesn’t happen! This sense of joy is evident throughout her collection, with pieces that look equally beautiful with a t-shirt and jeans or a little black dress and made to be worn with confidence and passed down for generations to come.