By Guest Blogger Maya Brenner
As a child, I always loved stones, beads and all things that sparkled. I used to take my mother’s hippie turquoise jewelry apart, only to put it back together, re-worked into a much better design… at least in my opinion. Years later, when it came time to choose a career, I pursued a master’s degree in social work. My interest in jewelry hadn’t exactly diminished, but I saw it more as a hobby at that time. Certainly not something one could have as a career.
So, I was 25 years old, working in New York City with drug-addicted adolescents and making beaded jewelry at night to calm my nerves. I always kept the latest issue of US Weekly on my desk at the office, and was fascinated with the celebrities and their style— something that my co-workers always found time to tease me about. I hated the clothes that social workers were expected to wear—our clothes needed to be conservative and not too stylish or revealing so as not to elicit “inappropriate” attention from the clients. Nothing even close to what I was seeing in the fashion magazines.
