Lady LUX

Patty Miller’s career in art started at age three. When company was coming over, she would arrange everything in the house perfectly, right down to the throw pillows. She instinctively knew how to make things look good. Today, her sophisticated line of statement jewelry, Joseph Mimi, does exactly that: makes women look good.

Her goal is to create those statement pieces that make people stand up and take notice, that pop so much, strangers will approach and comment on them. She describes wearing her Pierre ring into a gas station and receiving compliments. People ask her where she buys her jewelry and try to buy them off her hand. And that is what she seeks in her designs: that instant “wow.”

“I love a signature piece. I don’t like overdone, but I like a few pieces that stand out,” Miller said. “And usually on the larger side. I like something different, but that’s classic at the same time. Not too gaudy, not too trendy, that is kind of timeless in a way.”

Her litmus test: Does the piece stand out on its own?

The young Miller learned design through osmosis and an artistic great aunt, a famous painter who lived in Paris and would take her to browse the flea markets. It was at one of these markets that she discovered a little old lady peddling endless vintage rings. Buying a few, she went home and sketched and sketched. The result was her Pierre ring. That was her “aha” moment.

“I look for a fusion of playfulness, sophistication, independence, glamor and a little bit of edge,” the designer said. “Really pieces that impart a sense of individual style. If I pick a chair for my house, I want to love that chair that goes in my house. Even if I buy a pair of shoes, they’ve got to say something to me. Same with the jewelry and designing.”

Miller finds herself entranced with spheres, even simple shapes like a bowl of blueberries. Her pieces exhibit this fascination, with most displaying a spherical dimension, such as the small 2.5 millimeter metallic balls she is famous for. She goes for jewelry that has high impact, but is not so trendy it can’t endure.

“I’m always on the bigger side,” the designer said. “I’m a small person but I still like to wear bigger pieces. Classic and timeless. You can pull this piece out and wear it ten years from now and it’s not going to be old or dated.”

via Joseph Mimi

Today, the Pierre ring is still her absolute favorite. “It is so different. It’s that piece that everybody seems to be wanting … It can be worn with jeans or it can be worn on the red carpet … It’s a 24-carat stone, so it is pretty large, but it doesn’t look gaudy. It’s artsy, but it’s refined at the same time,” she said.

After attending school for design – graphic, not jewelry – she never looked at the world the same way again.

“I started to look at labels on towels and I thought the typeface was all wrong, so I knew (designing) was built in,” Miller said. “I just had a design eye. So that’s how I knew I was a designer.”

While initially “selling out for corporate America,” after ten years, Miller began to feel that her life was missing something. That something turned out to be jewelry design. Wringing everything she could from her business classes – taken at her father’s insistence – she launched her line a month ago.

Miller is always at work. With an idea folder busting at the seams, she is constantly on the lookout for inspiration, especially hunting through the endless fashion magazines she subscribes to. Anything that strikes her fancy makes it into the folder.

“The things I pull out don’t necessarily have to be pictures of jewelry, but sometimes it is a style or the way a woman is sitting with confidence,” the designer said. “And I have boards everywhere and I have this huge folder of ideas and as I am thinking about new designs and new collections I’ll constantly go through that. And not necessarily to steal ideas but to look at pieces that stand out to me and take bits and pieces from things and always make them larger than they are.”

Miller’s current love affair is with the laborite stone. Although the stone is gray, its flash – whether in golds, blues or greens – keeps it from being dull. The depth and variety of the stone make each ring unique, and it has made its way into much of her collection.

The designer is unashamed of the perfectionist attitude with which she approaches her designs. She knows what she wants, and this can translate into a refinement process that lasts hours, playing with each and every small detail.

“When I see something that I like, I know it, but I do drive my manufacturers crazy because I am so attentive to detail so if something is off just a little bit,” Miller said. “They say ‘it looks fine, it looks fine, it’s only off by a millimeter’ and I’m like ‘no, something is just not right.’ I know what I am looking for when I see it.”

Although the collection has already had some lucky breaks, Miller is hoping to make it into more stores that are compatible with her vision. “I really want to be particular about stores we want to get into. We don’t want to be in just any store. Not to be snotty,” she revealed.

Her next move is to start pouring in gold, a move she toyed with considering the hefty price tag of the metal. But she knows she wants to stay true to her roots.

“I don’t want to create a collection or add to a collection that doesn’t feel like they are holistic,” she said. “I want everything to feel like it is a Joseph Mimi piece. There’s an aesthetic that is tied throughout.”

Check out her jewelry at www.josephmimi.com.

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Fashion / Features