Jewelry has always adorned Nathalie Rachel Sherman's life. It sustains her Encinitas jewelry design business, provides a creative outlet and, in a way, helped shape her destiny.
As a 6-year-old from Marrakech, Sherman immigrated with her parents to Los Angeles in 1973, fleeing the anti-Semitism that reduced Morocco's post-World War II Jewish population of 225,000 to its present 5,000 to 6,000.
To fund that flight and the subsequent rebuilding of their lives, Sherman's parents had to circumvent Morocco's strict currency laws, which forbid taking dirhams in or out of the country.
So her parents converted all the cash they could into jewelry, which visiting family members periodically wore out of Morocco and stockpiled, to be reconverted into cash once the family made it to the United States.
“That's how we started life here – literally, with bangle bracelets,” said Sherman, whose Sophia & Chloe jewelry line is sold in 400 stores, boutiques and catalogs in 35 states and eight countries.
Paying homage to her parents and heritage, Sherman designed a jewelry series called Rock the Casbah, based on Moroccan henna tattoos, whose arabesque designs amount to a symbolic language.
Even her serious-minded father, who died this year, had to smile.
“My parents were huge on education. Their feeling was that if you are lucky enough to get one, you better do something serious with it – which didn't include 'art' things like what I do now,” Sherman said with a laugh.
“But my dad really liked it. It took a long time for him to wrap his mind around it, but once he saw what was happening, saw the catalogs and the pieces, he thought it was cool.”
Sherman's light, sometimes whimsical, jewelry, which utilizes both wire-wrap and traditional casting techniques, is made with semiprecious stones, freshwater pearls, gold and silver. Prices range from $48 for a pair of earrings to $900 for certain necklaces.
Today, she sells about 500 pieces per month, and her designs have been featured in national and regional magazines, including InStyle, Modern Bride, California Apparel News and Riviera Magazine.
Though Sherman said she was always a design “doodler,” she planned to be an attorney. But law school was sidelined by a car accident, and while Sherman recovered, she took a temporary job as a paralegal.
The experience taught her that she didn't want to be a lawyer. Instead, she carried on as a paralegal until 1997, when she gave birth to her first daughter, Sophia, and began her jewelry “hobby.”
By 1999, when her second daughter, Chloe, was born, Sherman had a full-fledged business – and the joint inspiration behind her business's name – on her hands.
Things accelerated in 2003, when Sherman was accepted to New York's prestigious ENK accessory trade show, which features more than 500 designers and attracts jewelry buyers from all over the world.
“It is tough to get accepted. You have to submit your designs to a jury, so I was fully expecting not to get an invitation,” Sherman said. “But before I knew it I was on my way to New York, scared out of my mind.”
Sherman needn't have worried, her loyal clients say.
“I go to all the jewelry trade shows and everything looks the same – I mean, how many turquoise single-strand necklaces can you possibly buy?” said Paula Gould, owner of Gale Grant, a New York City boutique that carries the Sophia & Chloe line. “But Nathalie's pieces are totally different, very unique, and the quality is fabulous.”
Source: signonsandiego
No comments:
Post a Comment