Woman-owned New England brand sells fine jewelry for ‘everyday adventures’

A jewelry designer with New England roots is creating fine jewelry she hopes you can wear while fishing, surfing or swimming.

Cove Fine Jewelry is a woman-owned company specializes in producing fine jewelry that is meant to stand up to the elements, including diamond earrings with super-strong friction backs and gemstone necklaces with tight-lipped clasps.

These coastal-inspired pieces were designed by Cove Fine Jewelry founder and Connecticut native Alyson Iarrusso, who drew inspiration from her time visiting Cape Cod while growing up and her incredibly active lifestyle in Hawaii, where she lived for a decade.

“Most of the things that I do wear and make, I try to think about, ‘would I wear this on my boat fishing? Would I wear this if we were going to go surfing as a family?’” Iarrusso told MassLive.

“I wanted it to be jewelry that I can wear at all times,” she added. “​​I want my jewelry to be part of your everyday adventure.”

While Cove’s products may not resemble signature Hawaiian bangles or have Hawaiian language engraved on them, many are made with solid gold pieces similar to staple Hawaiian pieces.

Cove uses authentic Tahitian pearls for its pearl jewelry and makes pieces with lab-grown diamonds, which have a higher quality and reduce environmental impact. The collection is entirely made in the United States and all of the company’s gold is sourced from New York City.

Iarrusso said selling American-made jewelry is one of her most important traits, as it better serves customers because she can more readily source materials from other businesses in the country. This also fosters stronger relationships with other U.S. businesses, especially those also owned by women.

“It’s really important to me to be part of local business networking groups like the Women’s Business League‚” she said. “It’s been life changing to work with other female entrepreneurs and support each others’ businesses.”

Cove’s pieces also hold a deeper meaning tied to geography. Every rhinestone in Iarrusso’s signature ring collection is associated with a specific place in New England, whether it’s red for Boston, blue for Cape Cod, or pink for Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Similar to how men identify with sports teams by wearing jerseys, Iarrusso said women identify with their place by wearing jewelry — and she’s grateful that her work resonates with something so meaningful.

“It’s inspired by the coast, not only with the colors and the textures and the meanings behind them, but it’s also a story that I want to be able to wear wherever I go,” Iarrusso said.

“Everybody has their place and then we walk around the rest of the year thinking about the countdown of when you get to go back to our place,” she added. “ I love that idea of connecting jewelry to a place and like having it be with you, but it’s also part of your identity.”

Cove is a culmination of Iarrusso’s decades of hard work, dedication and giving back to the community that has held a special place in her heart.

Following in the footsteps of her ancestors, Iarrusso grew up in Manchester, Connecticut but spent much of her upbringing visiting Cape Cod. Her great-grandparents, who immigrated to the U.S. from Denmark, used to drive out to the Cape in the 1950s because it reminded them of their homeland.

Iarrusso’s grandparents later bought property in Eastham and would often bring their own children, including her father, to the Cape. Iarrusso’s entire family still lives on the Cape while she lives in Hampton, New Hampshire with her husband. The couple, who share two children, lives near Lake Cove Beach, which inspired her company’s name.

“He’s an entrepreneur as well, but his company is called Place Cove Electronics,” Iarrusso explained. “My company is called Cove Fine Jewelry. So it’s just kind of our jam.”

Iarrusso started teaching high school social studies when she was 21 years old. Her first job was in Stanford, where she worked in the city’s public school system for three years.

In 2003, when Iarrusso was 23, she moved to Hawaii where she taught at the largest native Hawaiian-populated school on Oahu and the second largest in the state. Iarrusso’s introduction to jewelry making came in 2008 when one of her paddling sisters taught her how to solder.

“I was able to kind of just play around,” the business owner said. “And because it was such an outside culture, I built a little studio on my lanai and kept that going and started a company.”

Iarrusso started her first jewelry company, Aly Beach Jewelry, in 2008. In addition to coaching surf, managing vacation rentals and serving cocktails, the jewelry company was one of Iarrusso’s many side gigs on top of her full-time teaching job.

“I was always doing a side hustle and it was Hawaii, so it was expensive and it allowed me to travel,” the entrepreneur recalled.

“I soldered my own jewelry and I would dive for the shells on the North shore of Oahu and learn to drill shells,” she explained. “Then I started with Tahitian pearls, which are really popular in Hawaii. So I got a pearl drill and would buy pearls and drill them. And so I made a lot of bangles and it was great. It was a lot of fun.”

Iarrusso sold her pieces at trunk shows, in local boutiques and at home jewelry parties. She ended Aly Beach Jewelry in 2013 when she moved back to New England after 10 years in Hawaii. She continued making pieces while living in her studio in Portsmouth, New Hampshire but eventually got burnt out.

“I was teaching full-time, I was actually working another teaching job at night,” Iarrusso said. “So jewelry started fading out.”

But as interest grew and requests kept coming, Iarrusso decided to give fine jewelry another chance. She founded Cove in 2023 and has been fully dedicated to her craft ever since.

Iarrusso actually had some of her first pop-ups for Cove on the Cape, which is the community she is most involved with today. The business owner actually considers her biggest sale to have been to a well-respected resident from Orleans.

“She’s very important in the community and a cancer survivor and I kind of just looked up to her from afar. She bought one of my first significantly priced items,” Iarrusso recalled. “That was just a special moment to have somebody local, another female business owner, buy something from me that I never expected. It was a big moment for me.”

In addition to selling at trunk shows, boutiques and to clients on the Cape, Cove is stocked at Homegrown Boutique in Orleans and featured in Orleans First Friday events in the summer, as well as the Outermost Festival Market hosted by the Orleans Chamber of Commerce.

This year, Iarrusso will debut her new Nantucket red ring at the Nantucket Wine & Food Festival that is happening May 14-18.

Looking back at her career, Iarrusso is proud of switching careers from education to fine jewelry and entering a predominantly male-dominated field. She hopes her story will inspire other young women who may feel like their career options are limited.

“I think it’s really important to show females, especially after motherhood or after having a career and transitioning to a different career that it’s possible,” Iarrusso said. “This probably is something I should have done 15 years ago and I feel very blessed that I can do it now.”

You can browse Cove Fine Jewelry’s entire collection by visiting the company’s website. A list of places to shop in person can also be found on Cove’s website.