Interviews 
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| Interviews@3LC - Design | ||||
| Friday, 04 November 2005 | ||||
Page 1 of 2 The Magical Strand of Moonstones Mary and I meet at the corner of Prince and Thompson to go for brunch in SoHo, around the corner from where she used to live. She’s wearing jeans, a smart double-vented navy wool coat which is open revealing what I later discover to be one of her own designed t-shirts. On her feet are a pair of olive green suede Sigerson Morrison ankle boots, and on her forearm a smart Jamin Puech handbag (bought before they got so popular). Her hair is past her shoulders, strawberry blonde and blue eyes. She’s smiling. It’s autumn in New York. On our way to the restaurant, Mary runs into a young woman wearing one of her t-shirts. (She later tells me how fast her heart was beating when she saw the design.) She goes up to the lady and asks her where she got the shirt, and thanks her for buying it—telling her it’s one of her own designs. The young woman lives in Rome, Italy, and is in New York on vacation. “It’s the first time I’ve seen someone wearing one of my shirts!” she says to me, quite beside herself with glee. I notice that Mary is also wearing one of her own jewelry designs, which is so very fine and delicately hanging at her neck. At The Cupping Room Cafe we manage to get a table immediately. While we wait for out order she tells me about a few new boutiques which have decided to take some of her pieces. But she says it with an air of fatigue. She explains that when she came to study at NYU in 1991, and started working as a stylist at Condé Nast four years later, she never thought she’d want to leave the city. But 14 years has worn her down, and while she loves New York, she needs a break. Her boyfriend, also in the t-shirt business, is being transferred to St. Thomas for work, and she’ll be moving in a couple of weeks. "It’s a scary step (which explains the uncertain tone of her voice) to leave New York and have to come back and re-establish yourself, but a necessary step," (which explains the half smile). So why jewelry design? "I've always made little earrings and necklaces as far back as I can remember, nothing high tech-- just out of old glass or Ivory beads from my mom’s jewelry drawer. When I started styling, I was blown away by some of the things the accessory editor would get for our shoots. I was completley fascinated by so many stones I had never seen before." Mary was 'infected' with the jewelry bug! Seeing all of the jewelry on the shoots rekindled her love of jewlery that she always had in her heart, something she realized had been buried by her pursuit of a degree in Anthropology. "I can remember the very first thing that made me want to start making jewlery in full force was holding this long strand of rainbow moonstones. I had never even heard of the stone before, but they have an ethereal quality- transluscent white while reflecting blue and yellow at the same time," she says looking down with a smile, and I notice one sole ring on her fingers-- a moonstone. She started off buying gemstone beads on 28th and Broadway (and back then, gold was half the price it is now, yikes!), and started making small items and selling them to women in her office Over time, she experimented with different techniques and found new sources for the higher quality gemstones with the amazing color and cuts she uses today. "The rest is history, pretty much", she laughs. Just a few weeks ago, she adds, she finally found a top notch pearl resource, and she is really excited by what she has created since finding them. We’ll see what type of creations the St. Thomas air inspires in her next product line, scheduled for Winter 2006. |
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