Eclectica
Irina Miech has always been interested in jewelry design. While in college, she took several art and jewelry classes, and a few years later during a buying trip in Morocco, she saw an artisan making earrings in a marketplace. She was intrigued by the technique, and when she returned to the US, she began making her own designs, eventually selling jewelry to many stores and galleries. She opened a small store called Eclectica in 1993, and devoted one case to beads, and then two cases, and then a third, and eventually her entire store was taken over by jewelry-making supplies. She moved Eclectica to Brookfield, locating the store in the Galleria shopping center. As the popularity of beads exploded, so did the popularity of her store, and she expanded multiple times until it reached its present size of 6000 square feet of beading heaven.
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Designer - Dawna Davis
Local Bead Group - The Northern Virginia Bead Society
Bead Seller - Eclectica