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One could describe Pia Mance as lovely – but not the polite, pastel yellow a-line-skirt, please-and-thank-you lovely; you know, the one reserved for women who maintain their responses within the pleasantries of etiquette and society.

No, not that type of lovely. 

Pia is the type of lovely that when you meet her – the ultimate cool girl with a tour-de-force vision that is taking over the accessories market with her brand, Heaven Mayhem – you are only left with the thought of how genuinely kind she is. 

Remove the Heaven Mayhem of it all and you are left with a woman who is bubbly, generous, and, yes, lovely. 

I met Pia at Great White; a bright yet calm cafe in the heart of West Hollywood on Melrose Avenue that feels like you are in both Greece and Tulum at the same time. She doesn’t need to look at the menu – she orders the fish tacos on lettuce cups as if she had been there countless times before. 

Having just gotten home from a six week travel marathon going everywhere from New York to London to Paris to Ibiza, I ask her like a concerned mother, “Aren’t you jet lagged?”

To which she responds instantaneously with a straight face: “I don’t believe in jet lag.” 

This is all you really need to know about Pia. She moves fast, doesn’t accept excuses, and is here to get shit done with a smile on her face (did you know she only cried twice last year?).

What you might see on Instagram – luxury travels, alluring lifestyle snapshots of skincare and jewelry and shoes and Hermes bags, tailored and chic clothing, photoshoots with explosions of creativity, behind-the-scenes of her it-girl brand, Heaven Mayhem – is only the aesthetic finish of her life.

What most people don’t know about Pia Mance is how hard she works and how fast she moves.

She details her day to me: She was on her laptop at 5:00 am, went to a Pilates class at 7:00 am to support a friend, took calls between 8:15 am -11:30 am (one with camera off so she could do her makeup and hair), met for our interview at 12:00 pm, has a 2:00 pm mastermind call for a group of female founders, work on her laptop between 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm, and then has a dinner at 6:30 pm. 

I ask her why. I ask her what drives her. I ask her what has made her the energizing creative that she is. 

“I don’t really know why I do what I do,” she says. “I don’t really know why every day at 4:45 am, I just get up and go straight upstairs to my laptop. I’m just so driven and hungry and obsessed with Heaven Mayhem and building a brand and making these things work and solving these problems. I think it really lights me up. I think it gets my brain moving.”

Her brain is definitely moving. 

This year alone, she launched four new categories – brooches, watches, lanyards, and laptop covers – with sunglasses that just made their debut. I asked her why, after two years of selling the most trendy yet timeless earrings, necklaces, and belts, she felt the need this year to one after the other go into different categories. 

Is she trying to couple Heaven Mayhem with accessories instead of, let’s say, Heaven Mayhem with the Mini Knot Gold earring that Hailey Bieber is frequently seen wearing? 

“Yes,” she confirms. “I really want Heaven Mayhem to be the one stop shop for all accessories – the go to place.”

What started with $900 and a vintage necklace drop in 2022 has now exploded into a 7-figure accessory brand that, even if you tried, you couldn’t escape from. From Heaven Mayhem’s marketing campaigns – Hotel Heaven events, life-sized shopping bags, missing jewelry posters, branded newspapers, vintage video content, photoshoots that are fiercely editorial – to their irresistible ads, it seems that everytime you go on Instagram you either see a Heaven Mayhem product or Pia Mance’s face. 

A lot of that comes down to the fact that, as Pia says, “it is something I love and was meant to do.” 

A lot of it also comes down to one other ingredient. 

As we are chatting, eating her lettuce cup tacos and me, my poke bowl, I notice that one little character trait that rears its head into the stories of ambitious people. I see it, feel it, hear it immediately – mostly because I possess it as well. 

Impatience. 

“Where do you think your impatience comes from? Where does it stem from?” I ask.

“I have been like this since I was a kid,” she immediately responds. “Like, I have no patience for  following a recipe, I have no patience for wrapping a present, I have none of it.”

“Do you have a vision of your future that you’re trying to get to or is your patience in the moment?” I ponder.

“I think my patience is kind of in the moment,” she reflects. “My vision of the future is that I really want to build everything up to this go-to accessories brand. I have sales goals that I want to hit year over year from a business perspective. But, other than that, I’m not impatient to get anywhere because I’m enjoying the journey.” 

The other ingredient necessary in the recipe for great visionaries, creatives, and entrepreneurs: enjoying the journey.

When I ask Pia what her ten year goal looks like, she says Heaven Mayhem is sold to a private equity firm or a big company. 

“In ten years,” she says. “I would love to have like ten businesses.”

To which I ask, “Are you surprised you are such a business woman?” 

“Yeah,” she admits. “I am surprised.” 

But for a woman who repeatedly claims that she has no idea what she is doing, she is doing a lot right. While she admits her weaknesses of knowledge – numbers, investment perspectives, and financials – there is no denying the real year after year growth of Heaven Mayhem: from 2022 to 2023 she 10x-ed the business and is predicted to 5x it from 2023 to 2024.

For a first time entrepreneur, Pia Mance seems to know exactly what she is doing. 

As we wrap up lunch so that she can get to her 2:00 pm, I look at her incredibly minimalistic yet chic outfit – Enza Costa Everywhere Pants in white, a black St. Agni tank top, Heaven Mayhem sample sunglasses, the Half Moon bag by The Row, Heaven Mayhem Vase earrings in Silver, and black square toed Havaianas – and ask her: “Do you feel like a cool girl?”

And, with the same energy she has answered all of my questions – immediately and with a sense of confidence – she declares, “Yes, I feel like the coolest girl.”

And when she elaborates, you really see the genuine layer that makes up the mystique, the allure, and the magnetism of Pia Mance.

“I do feel like I’m a really cool girl because I think no one is that cool. I don’t give a fuck what you think about me. I don’t care about my ego that much.”

She tells a hypothetical story of meeting a Heaven Mayhem customer and Hailey Bieber at the same time. She would never turn her back, she explains, on the girl who buys her earrings just to talk to someone who might be seen as “more” important. 

“I would never turn my back on this girl,” she says. “I just want to make sure that everyone is listened to and valued.” 

As we walk out of the restaurant she spies a girl wearing Heaven Mayhem in the wild. 

“Hold on, I have to go say hi!” she excitedly says.

She leans over the entryway wall in a sea of people waiting to get tables and says, “I love your earrings! Are they Heaven Mayhem?”

To which the girl looks up from lunch with her friends and smiles and says yes.

“That’s my brand!” Pia says with the biggest smile on her face. 

I stand there witnessing Pia do what she does best: be the coolest, most passionate woman running the coolest, most creative brand. 

The it-girl who is just so lovely.