You don’t interview Marissa Hartington. Not really. You circle her orbit. You talk to the people who’ve worked with her, learned from her, felt a little intimidated by her. Her clients say she knows their closets better than they do. Designers she championed early on call her a seer. Everyone credits her with shaping Naples’ aesthetic culture through quiet, precise acts of taste.
Her eye and conviction have built Marissa Collections into one of the country’s most quietly influential luxury retailers. Founded in 1975 as a modest boutique, the family-run specialty store now has outposts in Naples and Palm Beach, with offerings spanning women’s fashion, menswear, fine jewelry and beauty. But the power lies in the edit. For 50 years, the store has served as a cultural salon and style barometer, anchored by one woman’s creative vision.
Marissa is perched upstairs in the three-year-old Palm Beach store, working beside me between bursts of commentary. Ambient music plays overhead. “This is putting me to sleep,” she says. “We need some reggaeton.” I laugh, thinking she’s being playful, nodding to my Colombian heritage. Minutes later, the driving beat drops and stays on most of the afternoon.
Later, I see her straightening a sales rack, aligning hangers and building full looks. “Just because it’s on sale doesn’t mean it should look cheap,” she says. Next, she’s calling out the grime on a neighboring restaurant’s windows. No detail is too inconsequential. Maintaining immaculate standards is, after all, about respect—for the designers whose work she represents, the clients who trust her judgment and the craft itself.
“What’s the word for a gentleman who’s a woman?” Burt Hartington asks, when I ask what he most admires about his wife. “Someone who’s sophisticated, a proper person of good character and responsibility,” he continues.
“A lady?” I offer. “Yes—she’s a lady.”
The word lingers, almost too simple. But taken seriously, it holds. On Marissa’s terms, a lady isn’t just poised—she’s principled, she sees clearly. She sets the tone.
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Photography by Omar Cruz
marissa hartington marissa collections naples jewelry display
Her husband, Burt, gifted her a coin recovered from a 1600s Spanish shipwreck off the coast of Key West. The center necklace is Bulgari.
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Photography by Omar Cruz
marissa hartington marissa collections pictured at a table
A woman of boundless curiosity, Marissa loves to read, cook, play piano and learn about history. Marissa wears a Brunello Cucinelli top, Brandon Maxwell blazer, Veronica Beard pants, and Manolo Blahnik pumps. Previous spread: Erdem gown with Sylva & Cie ring.
“Through fires, through storms, through everything—the trials and tribulations of life and business—she always has her vision pointed ahead,” says Michael Kors, the American sportswear pioneer and a trusted friend for more than three decades.
As with any effective visionary, Marissa is equally attuned to the past. A couple months after our Palm Beach visit, we’re in Naples, sitting in the store’s Oscar de la Renta showroom—one of the heritage brand’s select store-within-a-store concepts. “Fashion has never been just the imagination of the designer. It’s always collected, connected to cultures, history,” she says. She talks about the Silk Road, Japanese embroidery, Persia, Italy, Dutch Golden Age influences. “Fashion is part of the world.”
Then she’s up, back in motion, walking toward a black cocktail dress by the British-Turkish designer Erdem, one of her favorites. “You see this and you imagine ballet in St. Petersburg—on a stage, in a story.” Her face lights up.
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Photography by Omar Cruz
marrisa hartington marissa collections naples pictured on a staircase
Marissa wears a Brandon Maxwell top, pants and blazer, with Manolo Blahnik pumps and David Webb cuffs. “It’s funny—people think my mom has this huge closet, but it’s probably smaller than yours,” her son, Jay, says. “Her wardrobe is very edited.” Far left: David Webb necklace. “This is from a time when women wore true statement jewelry,” she says.
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Photography by Omar Cruz
marissa hartington marissa collections naples personal necklace display
When she styles clients, she’s crafting stories, too. A flowing silk reveals the grace beneath their reserve, a structured jacket amplifies their natural authority. With each selection, people step into their fullest expression, sometimes unveiling possibilities they hadn’t yet imagined. “She pushes me to take risks.” You hear that from fashion-forward clients like Ashley Gerry, who already leans bold; from the classically elegant Kathleen Kapnick, one of many clients turned dear friends; and from Karen Van Arsdale, who first worked at the shop and starred in early fashion shoots. After four decades, Karen still finds herself surprised by Marissa’s selections. A lady keeps you on your toes.
From a distance, you may presume her to be cold. She’s become more reserved after an illness claimed one of her vocal cords. “I’m terrified to lose the other one,” she says. Rather than seem aloof, she tends to arrive at events late and leave early, reserving her energies for sacred interactions at home and in the shop. Still, it doesn’t take long to see the mother’s warmth. “She’s funny.” “She loves to dance.” “She’s like a mama bear.” The refrains hold constant across conversations. A lady is consistent.
Born in Poland under communist rule, Marissa grew up surrounded by restrictions but never lacked access to culture. Her architect mother and research-scientist father delighted in beauty, intellect and art. A winding path—from clinical psychology studies in Kraków to pharmaceutical testing for a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary in the Northeast—led her to Naples at age 25. She felt instantly at home.
The town in the mid-1970s had the landscape—palm trees, pelicans, golden sun—but little of the culture she craved. No fashion. No flair. So she built it. A lady, after all, doesn’t chase trends. She creates the framework others follow.
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz
Her first small boutique, on Tamiami Trail, offered a radical departure from the era’s penchant for polyester, with breathable cotton and linen in a white and creamy palette. Cooled off and liberated, people responded instantly.
Burt appeared shortly after. The pair met at The Dock at Crayton Cove. Within months, they were partners in business and life. “I was mesmerized by her whole being,” Burt says. Their partnership was seamless: He built the foundation, she shaped the vision. When they moved to a locale on Fifth Avenue South, the two spent a holiday weekend building, painting and merchandising the space. When their son, Jay, came along, the back room gained a playpen. “I was an only child, but Marissa Collections was my sister,” Jay says with a laugh.
Now, with Jay as CEO, steering expansions, the business remains firmly rooted in family. “The store would not be what it is without Burt,” Marissa says. “He was the anchor that allowed me to be the face. And, Jay has taken us to a whole other level.”
The store evolved organically, decision by decision, always rooted in what felt right. Moving to the iconic pink building on Third Street South in the late ’80s was formative. Women would come to town for a winter holiday and get their wardrobes for the year, Karen Van Arsdale explains. The lady became a destination.
Photography by Omar Cruz
marissa hartington marissa collections naples pictured by a pool
“I’m rock ’n’ roll one day and Chopin the next. I love boho—that’s my heart—but I also love structure. Nothing is organized, and that’s very me,” Marissa says. “The only constant I have is to work hard.” Standing by her pool, Marissa wears a Missoni duster and tank and Stella McCartney pants, with an Assael sustainably sourced coral necklace, and other jewelry by Sylva & Cie, Harwell Godfrey and Leigh Maxwell.
Marissa didn’t come from fashion but her instincts and timing in it were uncanny. The store’s rise coincided with Downtown Naples’ evolution and the rise of American sportswear nationwide. By the early 1990s, when Andrés Duany was brought in to revitalize Fifth Avenue South, Marissa was already shaping the city’s aesthetic future. She introduced America’s rising stars—Kors, Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis, Donna Karan—then layered in the storied Europeans—Valentino, Prada, Gucci. “Most people who owned clothing stores in a small town like this would venture as far as New York City,” Burt recalls. “She felt very comfortable going to Europe.”
She was never chasing labels, though. To her, elegance isn’t symmetry. Taste isn’t wealth. And fashion isn’t logos. Her focus remains on what works for her clients—what fits, what flatters, what makes them feel beautiful.
Nearly everyone I spoke with could recall their first encounter with Marissa. Kathleen Kapnick was in the dressing room with her stylist when Marissa breezed by, made a single suggestion and moved on. She was right, of course. A longtime jewelry buyer for the store, Jennifer McCurry was wearing a pair of earrings she’d made herself. Marissa noticed them and invited her to do a trunk show. Ashley Gerry was looking for bridesmaid dresses and ended up finding a mentor.
None of these stories are about the transaction. Marissa recalls the garment, the moment, the person. And that becomes a kind of induction: the first encounter as a moment of belonging.
Subsequent meetings reinforce the relationships formed—and the artistry behind the woman’s vision. Each designer selection and impromptu styling session comes as second nature—an intuition born of years of scrupulous curation and an innate sense of style and composition that transcends trend. “She sees what others don’t,” says Naples-bred Veronica Beard, who started her career as a buyer for Marissa and now helms one of the world’s most successful ready-to-wear labels. Kors recalls Marissa explaining the difference between ‘Florida red’ and ‘New York red.’ “I said ‘Red is red’—and she said ‘No. Florida red is a little more coral. It looks good with sun-kissed skin and doesn’t make you feel hot.’” New York or Paris red, she explained, is a blue-red. “She was absolutely right,” he says.
If pressed, Marissa’s pragmatic inner circle will try to explain her knack: her psychology training, decades of exposure, near-perfect recall and appetite for history. All these contribute, yet don’t fully account for her talent. Watching her select the exact drape, the precise hem, or transform a simple stone on a leather cord into the perfect complement for a gown, you realize this craft transcends learning. It’s a creativity that defies logic—something innate, simply present.
Photography by Omar Cruz
marissa collections marissa hartington naples marissa parents wedding portrait.
Born in Poland under communist rule, Marissa studied clinical psychology in Kraków before coming to the States. Pictured here: Her parents’ wedding portrait.
That’s why she’s there in the store, not just driving from behind, but immersed in all of it, every day. “My mom works like someone’s going to take it away from her tomorrow,” Jay says.
Her work ethic represents her upbringing as much as the natural expression of someone for whom the line between passion and profession disappeared long ago. When she searches for new Latin American designers at 10 p.m., when she returns from vacation still checking inventory—these aren’t sacrifices. “It fuels her,” Ingrid Etzold, the Naples shop’s general manager, who has worked with Marissa for 12 years, says.
She expects excellence and can be intimidating to newcomers. But she’s the most demanding of herself. “She never asks someone to do something she wouldn’t do herself,” Ingrid adds. Not everyone can meet her standards. But those who remain get a masterclass in seeing what others miss and creating what most won’t. “She’s a big educator; she wants people to succeed,” Jay adds. The sentiment is repeated across her orbit. “If you ever went to her and said, ‘I need help,’ she’d be there no matter what was going on,” Jennifer McCurry says.
Her commitment is returned in loyalty. In 2015, the store suffered a fire that claimed the entire inventory and shuttered the store for three months. The team barely missed a beat. Patrons showed up with plywood for windows, snacks for contract crews and advice for navigating arduous insurance claims. Designers rushed replacement merchandise. Most of the staff stayed on. Marissa proceeded to deliver the fashion show she had been planning with Kathleen Kapnick for Naples Botanical Garden’s Hats in the Garden. “I would have understood if she had to back out, but she didn’t even think of that,” Kathleen says. “She had made a commitment and was going to come through.”
Photography by Omar Cruz
marissa collections marissa hartington naples portrait
A TWP collared shirt paired with a Carolina Bucci necklace, a gift from Jay.
The store’s longevity equally stems from Marissa’s ability to anticipate. As her clients got younger, she shifted the buy. As new designers emerged, she discovered them first. During a recent store visit, I saw her describing a ‘ballerina’s technique’ she’d heard of for styling a cardigan, with one button intentionally misaligned. (I have found no evidence for the trick’s existence, but have no doubt it’ll soon catch on.) She’s never clung to a look. She’s listened. And taught her team to do the same.
“She’s incredibly decisive,” Veronica says. That clarity—not ego or rigidness, but conviction—makes people trust her. A lady doesn’t waste words. “She tells you the truth. Even if it’s not what you want to hear,” the designer adds.
Yet for all her clarity, Marissa is full of contradictions. She sells six-figure jewelry but wears little of it herself. If a heel breaks mid-shift, she bears it rather than tap inventory. She watches Turkish and Colombian soap operas—not for the drama, but for the culture. “She wants to understand how people live—all the quirks,” Jay says.
At this point, she could step back. But she doesn’t. She’s in it for beauty, for excellence, for the challenge of getting it right. And, that’s not an appetite that ever diminishes. “She says she’s going to take a break,” Jay says. “Then she’s in the store adjusting racks and rethinking the lighting.”
A lady is never done.
Hair and makeup: Dani Taverna, Duality Artistry.
All wardrobe from Marissa Collections.