Elizabeth (Sissy) Wentworth Yates was born in Portland, Oregon in 1960, and grew up in Washington, D.C. She attended the National Cathedral School for Girls in Washington; the Choate School, Wallingford, Connecticut and graduated from Hampshire College in 1983. After graduation, she worked for five years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where she studied the vast collections of Asiatic and oriental beaded jewelry. These serve as an inspiration for many of her designs for her company, Sissy Yates Designs.

Sissy’s creations are based on a life-long fascination with stones and gems. She spent her younger years along the beaches of Cape Cod, the Caribbean and Mexico. She also spent many rainy winter afternoons at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, Hall of Gems where she would gaze into countless cases of sparkling stones from all corners of the globe. She collected stones and rocks and soon was creating jewelry for her family and friends.

Sissy travels the world in pursuit of unique stones. From the jungles of Vanuatu, the ancient medinas of Morocco, to the bazaars of Indonesia, she expands her collection and draws inspiration from exotic cultures.

Her jewelry mirrors her geological passion and strong fashion sense. “I enhance the natural beauty of unique stones by incorporating gold and silver details into the overall design.” The jewelry showcases materials like smokey quartz, labadorite, onyx, mother-of-pearl, blue and pink coral, woven beads, Chinese turquoise, shells, Indian topaz and kyanite. “The versatility of the necklaces themselves allow you to wear them long or repeatedly wrapped as well as informal to formal.”

Sissy is showing her collections privately in New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, and Palm Beach.

In addition to her jewelry company, Sissy has also produced over 20 documentary films for the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Society – among others.

Sissy has inherited her sense of adventure, and her fascination with remote cultures from her grandmother, Janet Wulsin, who was the first American Woman explorer to visit the outer regions of Mongolia and Tibet in the 1920’s for the National Geographic Society.

She and her husband live in Washington D.C. with their three young children, ages 14, 11, & 7.

Biography courtesy of Jon Marder at GSM Ltd.
Contact: jongsmltd@earthlink.net