Marina Raphael

Born and raised in Athens to a Greek father and Swiss-Austrian mother,^[6] Raphael is a sixth-generation descendant of Swarovski founder Daniel Swarovski.^[1] She graduated with an International Baccalaureate from St. Catherine's British School prior to completing a bachelor’s degree in Business Management at King's College London.^[1][7]

At the age of 19, Raphael founded her eponymous handbag label Marina Raphael,^[8] launching it a year later in 2018 in parallel with her university studies. Serving as its designer and CEO, the label’s pieces are produced in Florence, Italy with quality-control outsourced to Swarovski in Austria.^[2][9] Marina Raphael handbags are stocked by the likes of Harrods, Harvey Nichols, LuisaViaRoma, Neiman Marcus, and Moda Operandi.^{[10][11][12][13][14]} They have been carried by the likes of Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, Jessica Alba, Paris Hilton, Katie Holmes, and Jennifer Lopez.^[15][16][17]

Since 2020, Raphael's brand has collaborated with a number of third-party designers and companies including L'Oréal’s Vichy Laboratories, for whom Raphael also served as the face of the company's Greek advertising campaigns,^[9] influencer Evangelie Smyrniotaki,^[18] stylist Georgia Medley,^[19] and creative director and sustainability consultant Doina Ciobanu. Her work with the latter saw the Marina Raphael brand release its first sustainable collection of handbags which utilise a form of vegan leather developed as a byproduct of the industrial processing of apples.^[20] Similarly, a collaboration between Raphael and Swarovski announced in 2020 saw the designer and Swarovski Group’s Global Creative Director, Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert, collaborate on the design and production of the first handbag line to be released under the Swarovski marque in the jeweller’s 125 year history.^{[21][9][4][22]} In 2022, Raphael's brand was projecting that it would double its sales to reach revenues of US$2.6 million and, in the same year, it launched a collaboration with fine jewellery designer Eugenie Niarchos featuring a series of bespoke handbags accompanied by a collection of non-fungible tokens.^{[3][23][24][25]}

In 2024, Raphael was appointed Artistic and Design Director of Handbags at fashion house Elie Saab, the first time the house had created a dedicated creative leadership role for the category.^{[5][26][27][28]} In this role she works alongside the brand’s founder and creative director, Elie Saab.^[29][30] Raphael is responsible for designing four ready-to-wear handbag collections and two haute couture handbag collections annually. Her first designs debuted during the house’s January 2025 Haute Couture show.^[31][32]