Before her name was on a boutique sign, Mayet De La Rosa worked in her brother's pawnshop. She loved jewelry but could not afford it. “Before, I didn't have the means to buy, so I just contented myself looking at them when I worked in my brother's pawnshop,” she recalled. She watched his business do well, and she wanted one of her own.
A pawnshop in Zapote
It started with a wasted afternoon. Mayet came home one day and told her husband, Richard De La Rosa, that she had waited for hours at a pawnshop and come away with no jewelry she could resell the next day.
Richard was a university professor at the time and knew nothing about pawnshops. He decided to become her supplier anyway. He learned how the business worked, and in May 2001 he opened the first De La Rosa Pawnshop in Zapote, Las Piñas.
The pawnshop still stands on the same corner.
A name of her own
From the pawnshop counter the couple moved into jewelry, and into custom-made pieces in particular. In 2006 they opened a jewelry shop on Recto Avenue in Santa Cruz, Manila, and named it after her nickname: Mayet De La Rosa Fine Jewelry. “That started it all, and the rest is history,” Richard said. The shop became the foundation of the De La Rosa Group of Companies.
They split the work early, and the split has held. “She's the face of the business,” Richard said, laughing. “I work mostly in the background, helping out in management, research, operations.”
From one shop to twenty
By mid-2025 the house had grown to twenty branches, most of them in malls, including boutiques in Santa Cruz, Lipa, Antipolo and Pampanga. It also runs a busy online hub, where live selling has taken off. Mayet is still in the stores most days.
A jeweler people talk to
She is not a typical jeweler, and that is a big part of why people come to her. She tells stories well: about selling gold teeth, and about a client who haggled over a price and in the end bought because, the client said, she smelled good.
She has her own word for how the pieces are made: soul crafting, which means working design, emotion and the client's story into the gold. Every customer gets the same attention, whether they have come for a 0.1-carat pendant or a million-peso diamond ring. Many buy with resale or heirloom value in mind. For Mayet that makes trust the real luxury, and in a crowded market she does not take it for granted.
Passing it on
Her two children are already showing an interest in the business, but not in wearing it. “Simple lang sila. Wala ngang hikaw. Ako lang po ang naka-alahas,” she said with a laugh. They keep it simple and don't even wear earrings; she is the only one in jewelry.
She gives the customers the credit for the rest. “They're the reason I can curl my hair, wear perfume, and feel proud,” she said. “They gave me this life. Kaya super love ko sila.” That is why she loves them so much.
She also knows how she wants the house remembered: “that Mayet De La Rosa Fine Jewelry was there in the most special moments of people's lives, and that I was able to help uplift people's lives by being stakeholders in the business.”
