Emily Strauss

The EF Collection founder on love, loss, and diamonds.

By Lindzi Scharf

Photography by Birdie Thompson

Emily Faith Strauss's wildly popular fine jewelry line, EF Collection—beloved by Jennifer Lopez, Reese Witherspoon, and Zoe Saldana—has come of age alongside the designer herself.

"I fully fell into jewelry," Strauss says, seated on a pink couch inside her West Hollywood home. "Everybody asks me if my parents are in this business because typically with jewelry, it's a family generational thing, but I started from scratch."

Known for her impeccable eye and timeless taste, Strauss started the company in 2010 as a jewelry curator who sold her favorite pieces at local gatherings in Los Angeles. Three years later, she graduated to designing the pieces she sold, a natural transition given her innate ambition.

As social media grew in popularity, Strauss found a following of like-minded tastemakers interested in her every move—business, pleasure, and everything in between. Then, she fell in love. And soon, art imitated life as she designed collections inspired by personal milestones.

Case in point: EF Collection's first engagement and bridal collections coincided with the designer's 2019 marriage to Justin Strauss.

"I wanted to make it not just about jewelry," Strauss says of building a brand during a digitally driven era. "It's a lifestyle brand. There's fashion, daily life, my dog Levi… I mean, Levi has his own following."

When Strauss learned she was pregnant, she celebrated the joyful news with a small "baby-inspired" capsule collection.

"I was open and so excited about my pregnancy and shared it," she remembers. "We were talking about doing different collaborations…"

But Strauss's behind-the-scenes hustle began to tell a different story as unexpected events unfolded. At 25 weeks pregnant, she learned she was having a high-risk pregnancy. She was sent to the hospital for two months of observation leading up to her baby's birth. At the time, Strauss didn't realize what she and her family were up against. She soon learned her son would be born with a rare disease: polycystic kidney disease (PKD).

Ever the optimistic, she didn't know how harrowing things would get – nor did she know how to handle sharing such intimate news with her followers.

"How are we going to navigate this?" she remembers thinking. "I had thoughtful conversations [with my team], debating, 'How do you uplift the community?' I found myself in a role where I wanted to take something difficult and let people know you can be okay."

Against all odds, she gave birth to her beautiful baby Austin who spent 39 days in the neonatal intensive care unit before he passed away.

Because Strauss's followers have grown up alongside her—sharing milestones and memories together—she felt a responsibility to protect her community while mourning her beautiful boy and navigating a new reality.

"It doesn't get much worse than the loss of a child," she says. "But how do you turn that into purpose and positivity? There were times when I broke down because that's a natural feeling, but I was never going to sit there and cry the blues. I thought, 'What are we going to do to be better and be brighter?'"

GROWING UP

Strauss was born and raised in Tarzana, a suburb of Los Angeles. "I'm a true Valley girl," she says, explaining she attended Oakwood School throughout her high school years. Like most teenagers, she spent time soul-searching during college. "I went to multiple schools," she explains. "I went to Tulane, and Katrina hit, so I was displaced. I went to Boulder for a hot second, which was just not me. I'm not a Birkenstock, trail mix kind of girl."

"It was a hard transition, and my friends were all over the country," she continues. "I went abroad for an extended period. The first week, I met a guy, and I was like, 'I'm moving here.' I was so happy, and my parents were thrilled that I was in a good place, but after a year and a half, they were like, 'Okay. Time to come home. You're not moving to Italy and marrying an Italian guy.'"

Strauss returned to Los Angeles and graduated from The University of Southern California, where she studied art history. "It perfectly marries my passions," she says. "I had five years of college, but I graduated."

Her love of art and fashion led to an internship with a contemporary women's clothing line, 12th Street by Cynthia Vincent. "At the time, the economy was in the tank," Strauss remembers. "They were letting people go left and right. I had been interning, and I was let go. Little did I know, that was the best thing that could have happened because it ultimately led me to start EF Collection."

Strauss was at a dinner party with close family friends discussing job prospects. "One of my mom's best friends said, 'Why don't you curate a collection of jewelry?'" Strauss recalls. "She was like, 'You're so good at putting things together. Why don't you carry local designers? You can sell it out of your house. You can do trunk shows at private schools and charity events. Start something that way.'"

Strauss followed her advice and began meeting with local jewelry designers to carry their collections as a traveling saleswoman of sorts.

By 2010, EF Collection was born. "I was selling other people's jewelry," she says, explaining her company draws its name from her first two initials Emily Faith. "It was an eclectic mix. I would do charity events and school events."

Strauss credits her parents with being supportive of her path. "My father has been a mentor," she says. "He always told me, 'It doesn't matter if you're selling toner; or lighting or jewelry; the fundamentals are the same.' That's always stuck with me. He's been an amazing sounding board and a guide. He was in toner and is now in lighting—which was why I referenced those two."

Things evolved once she set up shop inside The Syndicate in Encino. "I was close with the owners of the hair salon that I've gone to my entire life," she says. "They were like, 'Why don't you come in during the holidays and sell your jewelry? The women will stop complaining about how much longer they have color on their hair.' I knew all of these women from growing up in the valley. It was supposed to be temporary for the holidays, but they let me—rent-free—show my jewelry in the shop three days a week for three years."

Looking back, Strauss admits she questioned herself at times. "I had a lot of personal anxiety about the fact that my best friend was a doctor; my other best friend was a lawyer, and there I was selling jewelry in a hair salon," she says. "I had this complex about it, and I look back, and I laugh because – don't get me wrong – I worked my butt off. It was not easy. But I definitely think there was a sense of, 'Oh, this girl is selling jewelry in a hair salon?' But it wound up being the best thing. It got things going. It was a great experience. I was able to garner a local clientele and get the company's name out there."

DESIGNING FOR HERSELF

By 2013, Strauss branched out beyond carrying other people's jewelry and began creating pieces herself. "I was dabbling in my own designs," she says. "The market is more saturated now, but eleven years ago, there wasn't that much delicate 14k diamond jewelry. I thought, 'It would be so cool to create jewelry like this at a more approachable price point.' That has always been my mission—creating beautiful, thoughtful jewelry that feels good and luxe, but it doesn't break the bank."

Little did Strauss realize her big break would arrive in the form of a small gesture. "A friend of mine had a contemporary showroom for fashion jewelry," she says, explaining the EF Collection's fine jewelry designs weren't the right fit for her friend's business but that her friend was personally supportive. "She was like, 'Can I buy some pieces because I like them?' She was wearing them, and Shopbop bought the collection off her neck. I didn't even have a line sheet. That was my first foray into wholesale."

As EF Collection's jewelry gained momentum, Strauss sought out a publicist and turned to Margo Siegel, who Strauss credits with helping her grow the business. "Margo has been with me since the inception—before I had a line sheet before I had a brand; before I had anything," Strauss says. "Margo is one of those people where she's like, 'You want it on this person? Done.'"

Soon after, Strauss had her first pinch-me moment. "We had gone to Europe to visit my brother who was in college at the time, and I had just signed on with Margo," she says. "I left her all the jewelry I had, which at the time was not much. I was there when I saw a picture of Jessica Alba wearing my zigzag stack ring. I was like, 'Holy shit. I've made it.' I was freaking out."

As demand grew, Strauss hired employees but remained hands-on in her approach. "I would sit there with graphic designers, and I would pinpoint every single detail in how I wanted things for the e-blast that we used to put together," she says with a laugh. "I still do that, but I have a team of people helping me now. On social media, you see these memes: 'I'm the graphic designer. I'm the designer. I do this; I do that.' You wear every single hat. We now have a staff of thirteen, but I have done every role that they're doing. I look back and laugh at some of the things I did."

As she and her company evolved, EF Collection's launches began to go hand-in-hand with Strauss's milestones. "I brought my personal life into the trajectory of the brand—not knowing what I was doing," she says. "It evolved organically and authentically. I started designing pieces that I liked and wanted to wear."

Then she met her future husband.

THE MEET-CUTE

Strauss's love story is like something out of a romantic comedy. "Justin and I had matched on every single dating app eight years ago," says Mrs. Strauss, whose maiden name is Goldstein. "We moved the conversation off the apps to text, but he never asked me out, and I wasn't going to say, 'Hey, let's meet for a drink.' In hindsight, I probably should have, but the timing wasn't right."

A couple of years passed. Relationships came and went. A friend wanted to set Strauss up on a blind date. She remembers them saying, "I have two guys I want to set you up with. One is really handsome and you're going to be intrigued by him. You're going to like him. But the other one is going to be your husband."

Strauss laughs at the memory. "I was like, 'No way.'"

She pauses. "And he's my husband."

The two met IRL two weeks after being re-introduced. They dated for nine months; then got engaged, were married in 2019, and celebrated their three-year wedding anniversary in October 2022.

Because Strauss works in textiles, the couple recently collaborated on a home goods capsule collection of cashmere blankets and wrist warmers, which was – fittingly – released on the day of their anniversary.

With both Strauss and her business coming of age during the social media era, it was only natural that she would bring clients behind the scenes of her life and the making of each collection.

"It was so fun to share my honeymoon," she says. "I took my followers along on this incredible, once-in-a-lifetime journey through Dubai and South Africa, and then I created a collection [with pieces inspired by it]. People were like, 'Oh my gosh. The Impala Horn ring is the impala horn you posted [from your trip].' It was so cool seeing that. It was like the mood board coming to life.'"

Strauss later shared her wedding day, which inspired an EF Collection bridal capsule. She also branched into custom engagement rings and wedding bands—a natural next step—after creating her own and sharing the experience with followers. But there is also a danger in sharing one's personal life publically with the lines between business and pleasure often blurred.

"My worst nightmare was designing this baby collection," Strauss says, explaining she'd announced the happy news she was pregnant with a little boy and had decided to create a small collection in honor of his arrival.

"There were pieces that were an ode to baby," she explains. "There was a lullaby bracelet. We also took a lot of motifs and made them baby [sized] or smaller for piercing. We design in advance. It's not like you come up with this idea, and the next week it's here. It's four or five months in the making. I mentioned to my production manager, 'Can you imagine if something goes…'" Strauss stops short of finishing her thought. But adds, "I vividly remember saying that."

Strauss was over the moon as she and her mother prepped her son's nursery. "At our genetic twenty-week scan, everything came back normal," she says, sharing she felt good and things were going well. "My husband and I were not carriers of the same thing at the time, and so they said, 'Everything is fine.'"

But as the samples of her baby collection arrived, Strauss found herself prematurely in the hospital. "I was put on bed rest because at my 25-week scan, I went in, and I had no amniotic fluid," she explains. "They said, 'Go home. Have a good dinner. You're going to Cedars[-Sinai after.]' I said, 'For how long?' They said, 'You'll be there until you give birth.'"

AN UNEXPECTED PATH

Strauss felt fine, but her doctors were in the dark as to why her amniotic fluid was low. "It was alarming," she says. "They let you know all of the possibilities. It's traumatizing. The whole time, my goal was, 'Keep that baby in as long as possible.' It was COVID, so I was by myself in a two-by-two hospital room. My husband and my mom would take turns visiting."

"For the first eleven days, I didn't leave [the room]," she remembers. "Eventually, they gave me patio privileges, and I remember thinking, 'I feel like I'm at the Four Seasons in Hawaii,' [as I stepped outside for the first time in days]. It felt like I got to go on vacation. It takes a mental strength to be in a hospital for a long time."

Work kept her mind somewhat occupied as doctors ran tests. "I was essentially running the business from a hospital bed for two months," she says. "It was insane. Meanwhile, nobody knew what was going on. I wasn't ready to share on Instagram. At that point, I didn't know what was happening. I remember one day, I posted a picture from a year prior, and Margo called me and said, 'What are you doing posting a picture like this? We'll figure this out,' but it was misleading. I was trying to keep things as normal as possible and keep the momentum of the brand going by sharing on Instagram, which is such a big part of the business."

Meanwhile, the hospital staff kept searching for an answer as to why her pregnancy was suddenly a high-risk scenario. "We kept doing tests and trying to figure things out," she says. "I was a carrier for polycystic kidney disease. At the time, they said my husband was not. The next logical thing was, 'Let's do further genetic testing.' The doctor said, 'This is such a rarity. The chances of him having it are 1 in 27,000. This is a zebra.'"

She remembers telling the doctor, "Let's do it, and we'll have more information when he's here and if there's a problem."

The attending doctor still argued against ordering the test. "I remember they said, 'There is a chance that you won't get the results before he's born.' I said, 'I don't care. I want my husband doing this.' I pushed for it."

She pauses. "We had no idea what was to come."

She made it to 34 weeks—the goal—and then she received life-altering news.

"The results came back, and we found out that Justin is 1 in 27,000," she says. "He's a carrier for polycystic kidney disease. Even knowing the results, I was completely naïve and numb. Being a positive person, I said, 'We're going to figure this out. And we're going to get [our son] a kidney, and he's going to be fine.' That's what was in my head."

During this time, Strauss was also forced to think about how to share the news with her followers. "When my pregnancy took a turn, sadly, as a business owner, Margo and I were having difficult conversations," she says. "'How do we share this? How do we take this situation and try to make it thoughtful?'"

Her son was born at 36 weeks. "He was still very much preemie," she says. "He came emergency C-section. It was the most traumatizing night of my life. His belly was distended. He had no lung function when he went into the NICU. Being naïve in certain circumstances, I swear God was looking out for me. Because going back, I would never have been able to do what I did—having this baby that essentially was extraordinarily sick."

She remembers initially blaming herself. "At first, I thought I was the problem," she says, but she eventually came to her senses. "I was keeping him alive by doing everything for him. It was extraordinary. He was a miracle."

She and her husband named him Austin.

"I always loved that name," she says.

Strauss learned to pump and took pride in feeding her son. "We never breastfed, but he took my milk through a bottle," she says. "I did get to hold him once." Her voice breaks. "It's really hard." She reiterates, "But I held him once."

Her son passed away after 39 days in the NICU.

She eventually shared the news on social media and was blown away by the response. "It's been so therapeutic," she says through tears, explaining she leaned on her Instagram community during that time. "When I opened up about everything, there was a follower on Instagram, I had never met her before, and she said, 'I know what you're going through in that NICU. I'm going to send you a Lovie, [which is a small baby blanket in the shape of a stuffed animal], and it's going to comfort you, and it's going to comfort Austin.'"

"It came, and he passed," she continues, "but what this woman did for me…"

A few more tears escape from her eyes. Her voice is shaking.

"I still get chills over what she did."

The gesture made Strauss feel less alone. She made it her mission to pay her experience forward.

Strauss and her husband founded Angels 4 Austin.

"After we lost Austin, we wanted to honor him and do whatever we could to bring awareness to the journey of being in a NICU," she says, walking through the nursery she'd set up for Austin. Over one year later, it's still in pristine condition with a large giraffe overlooking a wooden crib and a floor mat emblazoned with Austin's name and birthday. "We learned so much about that whole journey—the ups, the downs. It's the most vulnerable, difficult place to be."

The non-profit has a few initiatives with plans to evolve its mission as they navigate how to best honor Austin and his legacy. "On the website, when you make a purchase, you can also add a Lovie," Strauss says. "The amount of people who add a Lovie is inspiring. We've raised thousands of dollars. It goes to PKD research, and the Lovies are distributed all over the country. Any gift when you are in a vulnerable position is good for your baby and the mother. It's powerful. To know you're being thought of."

Strauss also created The Angel Wing Collection, which includes earrings, necklaces, and bracelets that benefit PKD research. "Before all of this happened, we had no idea what PKD was and how many millions of people it affected," she says. "My husband and I are very involved with bringing awareness."

She also found comfort in knowing her breast milk went to families in need. "Never in a million years would I have thought that my body could produce milk," she says. "I produced so much milk. My freezer was full. There's a necklace in my closet—it's a cherry blossom. I wound up donating my milk, and they sent me this beautiful necklace that means so much to me. They said, 'You have no idea how many children you're helping with this.'"

Strauss isn't the person she once was, but she's forever grateful for his presence. "Austin was here for a reason," she says through tears. "I'm sorry to get emotional. I'm a true Pisces. I'm an emotional person." She chuckles, then says, "He's made me a more empathetic, understanding person. Before when people would go through a similar situation like this—a miscarriage or something catastrophic, I understood the words, but the feeling was different. Now I know that pain."

The pain can be heard in her tone. "It's a different pain depending on each person's circumstances, but I know what that pain feels like," she says. "He's made me a more understanding person."

She says the experience also strengthened her relationship with her husband. "Situations like this can tear a family apart," she says. "I knew that Justin was the right partner, but I never expected that we could get closer through something like this, and we did."

WHAT'S NEXT

Strauss is always looking ahead. "My goal is always to be better than I was the year prior," she says. "The DNA of the brand is meaningful jewelry. Something that feels good when you wear it."

She says she wants each piece to represent more than a beautiful aesthetic but admits it can be challenging to keep up with the demand of new collections. "There is such an intense cadence of how often you have to launch collections—from the honeymoon collection, the bridal collection, the baby collection, the angel wing collection," she says. "When you are required to launch these collections so quickly, you can lose that [thoughtfulness]. We just finished spring 2023, and my team said, 'You have a month to design summer.' How do you maintain the integrity of the brand but also keep up with the expectation? That's a current challenge that I'm dealing with."

She credits her team with helping her build the business she has today. "People equate EF Collection with Emily, but there's so much that goes on behind the scenes to make the magic happen," she says. "It takes a village. I rarely say, 'This person works for me.' I always say, 'We work together,' because I could not do what I do without my team."

In addition to a thriving e-commerce operation, EF Collection is in more than 250 stores across-the-nation. Strauss is eager to expand internationally, but in the meantime, she's relishing every professional milestone, which recently included Jennifer Lopez wearing the brand's Hummingbird Necklace on her latest album cover, "This Is Me…Now."

"It's exciting to see different celebrities wearing it for different occasions—red carpets, Met Galas," Strauss says. "Even though my jewelry is not big bling—they'll wear a little ear cuff here, a little bracelet there. It's so cool."

As for her next steps personally, Strauss says she's learned to focus on the silver lining. "Sometimes these horrible situations bring light to other beautiful things," she says. "People can get wrapped up in the negative—like this shitty thing happened to me, and I can't see past that…"

It had the opposite impact on Strauss and taught her to shift her perspective onto endless gratitude for all she has. "I'm so grateful for my thriving business and my incredible family unit," she says. "I could not have gotten through it without them. It's easy to harp on what I don't have, but my dad always says, 'You are so blessed. Take a second. What happened was beyond. But there's so much in life to be grateful for.'"

"With Austin, this was not a fair life for him," Strauss continues. "People are like, 'How are you so strong? How are you okay?' I don't know what it's like to bring a healthy child into the world. Sadly, this is all I know. People who have healthy children can't even fathom it because it's just so out of bounds. For me, I don't know what that's like and I pray one day I will get there. I am hopeful. I know, in my heart, I will. But I haven't gotten there yet."

HOW SHE LIVES…

“The real estate market is crazy,” Strauss says, sharing that she and her husband had “given up” before moving into their West Hollywood home in January of 2021. “At the time, I was pregnant and so I thought, ‘We’re going to stay put. The house that we’re in is perfectly fine for now.’ But this home came on the market and my husband said, ‘I think we need to go look at it.’ It was built by a young couple [Krista Schrock and David John Dick of Disc Interiors]. It was move-in ready—minus the furniture. We admired their taste. They did a beautiful job and it turned out that my husband had known the wife when he lived in Chicago. It was meant to be.”

HER DOG LEVI

“Oh, Levi,” she says, kissing her pup. “Justin and I were about to get married and we were toying with the idea of getting a dog. My parents were like, ‘You’re nuts. Do not get a dog right now. This is not the time.’ I don’t know when the right time is to get a dog, but my husband wanted to get an electric car, so we went to the Century City Mall to test drive a Tesla. When we were there, there was a dog named Sonny. I had a connection with this dog and I said to the guy, ‘Where is this dog from? I’m in love with your dog.’ The guy said, ‘This breeder does not advertise. It’s all by word of mouth.’ I said, ‘I have a connection to this dog.’ Most people do research. They know everything about the doodle. Not me. I was on a plane to Utah the next weekend. My parents thought I was insane. We had been in touch with the breeder and she had sent us pictures of Levi. I don’t know if she was planning to keep him for herself or if he was the runt of the litter, but he is the love of our lives. He is the sweetest. He comes to the office every day with the EF Collection team—that’s why he’s so good. He gets love from all of us. There is no stranger. He loves everybody.”

THE JEWELRY

“I love signet and pinky rings,” she says. “This heart bracelet is part of an Endless Love collection that [launched] the weekend of my brother’s wedding. I custom-made it for a friend to honor her grandmother and I thought, ‘This is so beautiful.’ When I put it on Instagram, so many people loved it, so we did a full collection with that. The others are our diamond eternity bracelets. It’s a nice stack.” She’s also wearing an angel wing bracelet, diamond dome ring, diamond eternity band ring, half marquise diamond ring, and diamond bezel stack ring.

THE LIVING ROOM

“This room was designed to be the jewel box of the house,” she says. “We had an interior designer that helped us bring this space together. I love the sense of color in here. I love color but muted color. Some of its monochromatic and some of it is unexpected.” She points to a pink couch in the room. “Because my husband is in the textile industry, the couch is actually his fabric, but we designed it together; so it’s the ‘Strauss couch.’ That was the first piece in this room. I think it accurately reflects both of our interests and personalities.”

THE BOOKS

“The books are a mix of artists and fashion,” she says. “I love fashion books.”

THE SCULPTURE

“Everything is very personal,” she says. “The Anne Ricketts piece is special and is an ode to me and Austin. That’s [a theme] throughout the house.”

A LOVE OF ART

“Art is about what speaks to you,” she says. “Much like jewelry.”

THE PURPLE PIECE

“We just hung up this piece on Friday,” she says. “We commissioned it from a gentleman named Derek [Kaplan]. Purple is my favorite color. At first, we were going to do a raspberry purple and it just took on its own tone.” She found the artist through her interior decorator Lisa Rowe. “They’re friends. He is married to [Fredrik Eklund] from ‘Million Dollar Listing?’ Their house was featured in Architectural Digest and there was this beautiful yellow square in the entryway. I said, ‘I love that. Can you find out who the artist is?’ When she called them, he said, ‘I made that.’ So that was how it came together. But it was cool. He was like, ‘The family has to love it. So if they don’t love it, they don’t have to take it.’ But we loved it. So that’s the newest addition to the room.”

AN ODE TO TRAVEL

“I love this piece over here,” she says. “The artist [Max Cobalto] is represented by Galerie Half, which is a beautiful gallery on Melrose. The guy who was helping us was named Austin. This was before I had Austin, but I loved that name. I didn’t commit to the piece, but I kept thinking about it. I went back to see him and immediately remembered his name because it was Austin. He said, ‘Listen, you’re so passionate about these pieces. We only have two or three. I’m going to connect you directly to the gallery in Spain,’ which was so nice of him to do. I was going back and forth and they told me about a new artist that they had just picked up. And it just made me happy, so this piece came from Spain and my husband and I love to travel, so it’s an ode to that.”

THE CANDY JAR

“I love candy,” she says. “There are candy jars pretty much everywhere in the house.”

THE FAMILY HEIRLOOM

“A lot of people who come to this space ask, ‘Is it this artist or that artist?’ It was actually made by my grandfather,” she explains. “My grandmother – my dad’s mother – remarried and she married an artist, a sculptor named Leon Saulter. It was sitting in our garage in a crumpled envelope and I loved it. Of course, it was very yellowed; so we set it in a lucite frame but we call it our live entertainment when we’re having dinner. It’s an etch on coal of one fluid movement. It’s a cool piece.”

THE CUSTOM TABLE

“The base is from the 1700s in France,” she says. “It’s from a local showroom that my husband sells his textiles to and then we wanted to find a cool piece of marble to go on top of it. We went with our interior decorator and found this beautiful stone that had purples and greens—marrying all the different rooms. We loved the way it turned out.”

A SHARED AESTHETIC

“We’re both creatives,” Strauss says, referencing her husband. “We understand each other. We both have creative minds. He’s into the details, which I appreciate. We learn from each other. Fun fact—we’re born on the same day. We have the same birthday two years apart.”

THE RECORD PLAYER

“My husband and I are both into music,” she says. “We’re currently into Chris Stapleton. We just went to Denver for his concert. It’s beautiful. We oftentimes blast this. You kind of feel like you’re at the concert.” She points to a stack of records. “Our collection is small but it’s growing,” she says. “Our friend’s father retired and opened a cool record store on Sycamore [Avenue called Supervinyl]. The week after we bought this, Beyoncé walked in and bought this exact one for her office, which I thought was cool. But it’s an all-in-one. So it’s kind of a record player for dummies.”

THE DOLL

“My husband and I went to South Africa for our honeymoon,” she says. “There were these little dolls everywhere in all the shops. I thought they were so cute. I was particularly drawn to these because I loved their hoop earrings and the shells. I thought, ‘These little guys have to come home with us.’ Little did I know, they’re actually fertility dolls and we hadn’t even begun our journey of starting our family. Interestingly enough, it took a year and a half for them to arrive because of COVID, but they’re here now. They still make me smile when I see them, but hopefully, they’ll bring us some luck.”

THE EMBLEM

“We commissioned this guy to make a [his and her] credenza,” she says. “This handsome guy comes over. He brings the wood, he cuts the wood, everything. We choose every panel. He was like Aidan from ‘Sex & the City’. My jaw was on the ground.” She continues, “Justin texted me and was like, ‘Send me our wedding logo,’ because I guess he wanted to have it engraved. I was like, ‘Wedding logo? No.’ We kiboshed the wedding logo, but hummingbirds are everything right now. I swear Austin is now a hummingbird. Without me knowing it, look at what he did on both sides of this piece.” She points. “He etched a hummingbird and he had my production manager put an aquamarine eye on the inside of the wood. It’s crazy. There’s one on both sides, so that’s special.”

THE SHOE WALL

“This is my wall of shame,” she jokes. “No more shoes. I have no room, but I love accessories. I love handbags. And I love shoes. I feel like shoes always fit no matter how you’re feeling. My collection has grown over time. Before I moved into this house, I didn’t have a wall where I could see everything; so now I can see the investment. {laughs} All of my hard work goes to this wall. I don’t wear heels so much anymore. I wear flats. I wear mules – every day – to the office. With some shoes, it’s like, ‘Do I need these? Absolutely not, but I must.’ I don’t know. There’s something about shoes.”

THE FAVORITE PAIR

“These are my current fave,” she says, holding up shoe designer Amina Muaddi’s Rosie Satin Sling 60 Heel. “It’s like jewelry for your feet. Amina Muaddi does these crazy, colorful, bedazzled shoes. It’s not really my style, but this is a little bit more refined. I love color in my jewels, but in my everyday style, I’m a little bit more classic. But I felt like this was such a wearable shoe—it’s timeless. I love a timeless investment. I’ve worn these once. I bought them for my brother’s wedding. I was nervous to wear them. I was totally like looking down, like, ‘Are my jewels on my feet still there?’”

HER JEWELRY PHILOSOPHY

Strauss’s perspective on jewelry is simple. “It makes you feel good,” she says, clad in EF Collection’s Script Diamond Custom Initial Necklace, Jumbo Diamond Celestial Necklace, and Hummingbird Necklace. “It’s all about feeling good and with every piece of jewelry there’s a story—whether you bought it for yourself because you wanted to treat yourself or maybe you got it for a milestone birthday or an anniversary. Every piece that I’m wearing there is a story behind it. Jewelry is powerful in that way.”

THE PIERCING PARTIES

“During COVID, you couldn’t do piercing,” she says, wearing EF Collection’s Half Diamond Essential Hoop Earring, Jumbo Prong Set Diamond Mini Huggie Earring, Triple Solitaire Diamond Chain Stud Earring, and Full Cut Diamond Mini Heart Stud Earring. “The shops were closed, so Margo had this brilliant idea: ‘Why don’t we do these private events and get the celebrities in?’ So that’s been cool and a way to connect a little bit more personally. We’ve done so many fun ones—Demi Lovato, Lucy Hale.”

THE NURSERY

“My mom and I had so much fun designing this room,” she says. “Obviously, there’s an important detail missing, but it’s just beautiful and it brings me peace when I come in.” She adds, “I don’t come in all that often, but when I do, I sit in the chair and think about everything. I wish he was here, but… Levi has always loved that chair. Some of the animals on there are from our honeymoon that we brought back. I love Gray Malin. I thought those were sweet. It was so funny. My sister-in-law was like, ‘Get that giraffe out of there. Every baby is so terrified of the giraffe.’ I was like, ‘It’s safari themed,’ because we went on a honeymoon safari. I was like, ‘The giraffe is staying.’”

THE ANGEL WING COLLECTION

“The Angel Wing Collection is in honor of Austin,” she says. “I try to have a wing on me at all times. Sometimes I’ll put a necklace on or a bracelet.”