Blond, beautiful and well-bred, jewelry designer Sissy Yates seems the poster girl for the East Coast establishment. Her mother is Muffie Cabot, Nancy Reagan's former social secretary who later ran PR firm Rogers and Cowan, then married into one of Boston's First Families. Her great-grandfather was a New York railroad baron, her grandmother socialite Janet Elliot Wulsin. Dad was Washington Post reporter Eric Wentworth and her sister is Alexandra Wentworth, the straight-shooting actress known for her work on In Living Color and Seinfeld ("No, you're the Schmoopie!") who now writes for Marie Claire. When Sissy wed Emmy Award-winningdocumentary director and producer Angus Yates, she added father-in-law Mike Wallace to the tribe; her sister ushered in George Stephanopoulos.

Between the Wentworth sisters, their mother and the families each of the three has married into, this group's got a collective Rolodex that would put the Green Book to shame. So picture if you will a guest list culled from those contacts: from years on the Washington party circuit, generations on the social register, ties on both sides of the aisle and family and friends in television and film. Now imagine the fete has a movable venue. It's in Georgetown one month, Massachusetts the next,

NYC after that. Hardly sounds like work—and that may be the secret of Sissy's success, because this dazzling to-do is actually a booming jewelry business: Sissy Yates Designs.

A year ago, Sissy—whose given name, Elizabeth, was shortened irrevocably by an older brother who couldn't pronounce "sister"—was laid off from her job as a television producer. She had been designing jewelry for over 15 years with stones she and her husband collected while traveling the world "I'd have 50 to 100 necklaces in my closet and be giving them away. My mother and sister said 'It's time to get you out of the closet.'" So the three staged a coming-out party for her designs, inviting Washington society young and old. "We sold everything. It was just a wild success. We looked at each other and said, 'okay, here we go,'" says Yates.

And go she has. Demand for her by-invitation shows has soared, with women clamoring to be added to Yates' mailing list and requests to fit New Canaan, Connecticut, San Francisco and Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club into her itinerary. "It's now a matter of pacing, because I make everything myself," she says. In addition to the gems she collects on travels, Yates crafts her dramatic yet un-stuffy pieces with semiprecious stones she imports internationally. "I buy great mother-of-pearl from Hong Kong, and this beautiful blue turquoise from India. I got my US Fish and Wildlife license so I can import it all!" Though Sissy prefers private showings where she can be on the scene to interact with customers, see who buys what and lengthen or shorten items as needed, she is testing the retail waters with a display at Georgetown's Sherman Pickey. And she's aware that her family workforce, though dedicated, may not be enough. Right now she gets beading help from her husband and kids Angus, 13, and Josie, 6; Jack, 10, designs his own line. Her sister continues to host and work shows and mom's selling pieces right off her neck at dinner parties. "I definitely need to hire some people to help me. It's growing fast and I have to keep up," says Yates. Given her genes, we're pretty sure she's prepared.

Text by Kate Arcieri, Photographs by Clay McLauchlan