Celeste Magdaleno’s business started when she was just a little girl admiring her grandmother’s jewels—she just didn’t know it, yet.
As a child, Celeste would take her grandmother’s necklaces apart and rearrange them, teaching herself to bead. When her grandmother, who worked at a belt factory, brought home different belts in extravagant textures and materials, she’d wonder over the styles. It was the birth of what would become Motita Jewels.
Celeste studied fashion at the Fashion Institute of Technology and LIM College in New York, and is now the designer of all Motita Jewels handmade statement pieces. In addition to dreaming up and producing the pieces, she also manages the business side, running the brand’s social media, sales and public relations.
Oh, and that business name? A nod to the woman who first inspired her: Celeste’s grandmother called her Motita, which means small powder puff in Spanish.