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Want to take home a piece of Girlina? On Monday, Nov. 26, you can snag Maxfield’s limited-edition earrings for 30 percent off on her website Girlina.net!
UNC professor Annie Maxfield has the sort of resume that refuses to be condensed.
The PR adjunct professor, who also teaches at Duke, has been a teaching assistant, make-up artist and public relations manager in her lifetime, and now she has another job to add to the list – jewelry designer.
Maxfield launched her jewelry line, Girlina, in mid-September, and it is quickly gathering steam. It is now carried at Vespertine in Carrboro, LabourLove gallery in Durham and online at Etsy.com.
Maxfield said her jewelry is inspired by strong, different-looking women, and she keeps one adage in mind as she designs: “Why should things that are beautiful have to be expensive,” she said. “Things that are beautiful should be accessible to everyone.”
All of the earrings she designs are bold, limited-edition pieces that are lightweight, wearable and best of all accessibly priced for the everyday woman.
Maxfield said jewelry design offers her a creative outlet, and she appreciates that jewelry is something you can never outgrow.
Maxfield’s designs combine wood, fabric and metal, and she said finding just the right pairings is like a “treasure hunt.”
To create each set of earrings, she will lay out all of the different shades of fabric and then add different metals. The process can take two to three hours, she said, but when you find the perfect pairing, it just clicks, she said.
Maxfield said she probably won’t turn a profit on most of the work that she does, but she enjoys being able to provide people with something unique.
“I don’t want it to be ruined by being big. … Right now I am making a lot of earrings every weekend and loving it. But if it were mass-produced, I wouldn’t love it as much.”
Going forward, Maxfield said she would like to attempt necklaces next, and gauges for gauged ears, but after that, “Who knows?” she said.
“I am learning as I go along,” she said. “I think that there is just this whole other world that has opened up for me. It is really nervewracking and invigorating. You learn a lot about yourself.”