Shelly loves her jewelry and accessories with a PASSION, and she comes to the (taste) table with creds. She was the Design/Inspiration Director for Donna Karan for twenty-one years, and began her career working for one of the original department stores, John Wanamaker, in the ’60s, where she was considered the “crazy assistant buyer running around half naked… in very minis.” At that time, she and Betsy Johnson fell mutually in love with one another’s style. Shelly has one of the most drop dead enviable jewelry collections of some of the most epic designers from the past thirty years, all of whom I too consider to be iconic in their art, like Stephen Dweck, Patricia Von Muslin, Robert Lee Morris and Erickson Beamon. Shelly is so dedicated to her jewels that they are worn in piles on whatever limb will hold them. She is so well known as a possible security risk at Kennedy airport that the security guards have given up on frisking her and just let her go through. In addition to the designers above, Shelly loves her “bling bling,” and would rather have something from the street, like her amazing ten dollar leather studded bracelets, than a diamond one any day. In fact, if one of her twenty-something boyfriends gave her a couple of diamond rings, she says, “I would just say no… but if you want to give me some of those bling watches that Nelly wears, ‘I’ll take them.’” Then there are Shelly’s “spiritual-design” friends, like Rachel Brown, whose Kabbalah-inspired jewelry I personally love. The chunky rings and large plate-shaped necklaces, with Hebrew writing look like one of those gorgeous extravagant ornaments that wrap around the Torah – kind of Old Testament ghetto. Shelly was a regular at Studio 54, decked out in leopard and today, she frequents the Boom Boom Room, also decked out in leopard. However, as always with Shelly, there’s no need for drugs and alcohol, as she’s just way too high on life, showcasing her talented ebony, ivory, silver and crystal larger than life friends.

If you like Shelly, you may also enjoy Jermaine Jagger, and Barbara Flood.