Maggie Smith

NAME: Maggie Smith

BIRTHDAY: August 12 (Leo)

HOME: Hyde Park. Cincinnati. Ohio.

WORK: Velvet Antler jew­elry. Owner. Designer.

MOTIVATION: “I need con­stant visual stim­u­la­tion– stir­ring images of peo­ple and objects. I can’t turn it off, whether I’m awake or asleep.”

OBJECTS OF AFFECTION: Oil paint­ing. Working with card­board. My huge “hunt­ing horn” chan­de­lier made of antique brass horns that took me years to col­lect. The Lower East Side of Manhattan. Vivienne Westwood. Dries van Noten. Martin Margiela. People with atti­tude and big hearts. Animals, both live and stuffed. Found objects for my jew­elry and sculp­tures. Good whiskey, vodka, and dark choco­late. Ned Stern– my love and cre­ativ­ity in life. My sons Eben, Ethan, and Noah. My jew­elry — since I could not find any­thing that felt right on me. My closet. My hair. Myself.

OTHERWISE OBSCURED FACT: “I used to illus­trate children’s books for major pub­lish­ing com­pa­nies. My eldest son Eben has a few tat­toos of the illus­tra­tions. They suit him well.”

MAGGIE’S HIGHSTREET: “I do own many things from HighStreet and am highly respect­ful of my trea­sures. However, when I walk into the store I’m over­whelmed with ideas and want to walk out wear­ing every­thing. A skirt made of John Derian decoupaged plates wired together , the Future Retrieval porce­lain rat and rooster fig­ures perched on my shoul­ders, and the over­sized orange Designers Guild blan­ket wrapped around me to keep the sun from sear­ing my skin. Just a lit­tle glimpse of HighStreet through my eyes.”