The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
JEWELER WITH HEART
Hollywood comes calling twice for businesswoman whose designs will grace necks, wrists of the stars
MIDDLETOWN >> Mira’s Jewelry is headed to the Oscars.
The journey from the Golden Globes to the Academy Awards almost didn’t happen when city business owner Mira Alicki opened up an email asking her to hand out gift bags of her jewelry to nominees at the 74th annual Golden Globes on Jan. 8.
“I thought the email was a total scam and almost deleted it,” Alicki admitted.
After doing some research online, she discovered that the offer was indeed legitimate and quickly got to work for the big event. With one awards ceremony under her belt, Alicki feels a bit more prepared to go chat up her Forever in My Heart jewelry line with movie stars at the 89th annual Academy Awards in February.
Award shows like the Globes and the Oscars have a longstanding tradition of handing out all kinds of swag to nominees so everyone goes home with something, even if it’s not a gold statue with their name engraved on it. For Alicki, being a part of that tradition was an winning opportunity for a small business owner to place her jewelry in the hands or, literally, around the wrists of influential people.
Her contribution was a sterling silver bracelet with an engraved charm that reads “Forever in My Heart” on one side and “Rescue Me” on the other.
Alicki has always been an animal lover and wanted to do a jewelry line that gave back to animal charities, but she wanted to do something different than what was already out there. When her beloved German shepherd Amber died, Alicki went on a search to find cremation jewelry but couldn’t find anything that made her happy, she said.
More so, what she found was cremation jewelry that came with hard-to-use funnels and super glue as a sealer. She decided to create something better.
“Most of the stuff out there really looks like cremation jewelry” she explained, “and I’m thinking, ‘you know what, if someone wants to put ashes — it doesn’t matter if it’s animal or human ashes — inside a pendant, this is going to become the most sentimental piece of jewelry they are ever going to own.’”
Forever in My Heart, a line of jewelry that includes nontypical cremation jewelry and jewelry that features different kinds of animals, was created out of this experience two years ago.
Her website, foreverinmyheartjewelry.com, was specifically developed to benefit animal charities.
Alicki speaks passionately about the work she’s put into making certain that 40 percent of the proceeds from every purchase goes toward caring for animals. “I feel good about giving back to animal charities because the reality is that there’s so many nonprofits out there and for a lot of them, only a small percentage of the money actually goes to the cause,” Alicki said.
She remembers the Globes being a blur of actors, directors, producers and others associated with the entertainment business, many who she didn’t recognize until afterward while looking at pictures. “It was a really cool experience suddenly recognizing who was standing next to you,” Alicki confessed.
The celebrity she remembers best is Casey Affleck, who won the Best Actor award for his performance in “Manchester by the Sea.”
Plans for the Academy Awards include gender-specific jewelry: Forever in My Heart bracelets for men and pendants for women.
As to what she’s going to wear, Alicki is still in search of the right dress but is hoping to find something white and navy blue to match all the jewelry boxes she’ll be taking along with her to Hollywood.
The attention hasn’t gone to her head. When asked if she felt like a celebrity, she laughed, saying, “I don’t feel like a celebrity at all right now . ... I have so much more work to do.”
While donations only apply to purchases from her Forever in My Heart line of jewelry, the official mission statement of Mira’s Jewelry is “Transforming our client’s dreams into a reality.” The services provided to clients include handmade and custom jewelry, jewelry repair and reasonable prices, Alicki said.
Her cremation jewelry doesn’t come with glue, it’s soldered shut at no charge and buying a piece of her jewelry provides for others, services Alicki said customers won’t find elsewhere.
“If you’re going to buy (a piece of jewelry) and some part of the money is going to do some good for others, it’s almost like giving two gifts: giving yourself a gift or whoever you’re buying it for and giving a gift to somebody else.”
For information, see mirajewelrydesign.com.