Jewelry

Lucite Bead

A Gem of a Designer

A few months later at a Downtown boutique, a large collection of Segal jewelry almost replaced the store's usual offerings.

"She's our No. 1 jewelry vendor," said Cheryl Walker, co-owner of Pappagallo, which has carried Segal for seven years.

"We don't have anything else like it in the jewelry store, and, if we do, it's not of that quality. Her jewelry looks expensive. You can wear it with jeans too. It's very versatile."

Segal's jewelry is also sold at What's Hot in Germantown, and she is the primary earring vendor for Muse, said Lisa Doss, owner of two Muse stores in East Memphis and Downtown. "Some people just wear the same pair every day," said Doss. "It's their favorite pair of earrings."

Segal is married to Howard Segal and has two grown daughters by an earlier marriage, Brooke Steiger and Caitlin Steiger. As a child, she was fascinated by the baubles in her grandmother's jewelry box, and, when her children grew up, she took up jewelry-making with the idea of having a small business.

Earlier this year she created necklaces of jewelry on silk cord and Hoop Earrings decorated with tiny Seed Beads and crystals. She showed them to Pappagallo and What's Hot. Both stores bought $200 to $300 worth. The jewelry sold well; the stores reordered and became regular Segal customers.

Segal set up a workshop for her new line, Debbie Segal Memphis, on a card table in a guest bedroom she had just redecorated, and congratulated herself on having a business that took so little space. Today, her business has taken over three rooms in her house for a studio, an office and a client meeting room.

Segal has resisted advice from other jewelry-makers to focus on a single signature look. "I have many looks because I like to move on," she said. "That's what keeps it interesting."

Her jewelry is marked by artistic groupings and attention to detail. A lariat-style necklace, for example, dangles a striated piece of polished gray agate and a quartz stone of swirling white, set off by a baroque Silver Bead, and two tiny dots of color: a bead of Green Jade and curry quartz.

One of her most popular necklaces is an outsized crystal on a substantial antique chain that looks as if it had been salvaged from a sunken treasure chest.

While not trendy, "I keep an eye on what's going on," she said. She guessed that the retro trend in fashion would rediscover Lucite, and she found gold-flecked Lucite made in Italy for her pieces.

Her next collection will complement the gray and spice colors in clothes that will be fashionable this fall, and she'll continue with Lucite in dark, transparent colors. But Segal has to feed her restless imagination.

For example, a small filigreed dangle she created could have come from her grandmother's jewelry box, but the white quartz bead attached to it looks fresh, contemporary and purely Segal.

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What is the best way to clean surfaces that I make polymer clay beads on?

I use a square of Lucite to work on and I can't seem to get all of the smudge/smear from my last piece of work off with just soap and water.

Try a bit of isopropyl (regular) alcohol. It should clear it up nicely.

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