• November 11, 1996
• Vol. 46
• No. 20

She's Forever Sowing Baubles

Sage Machado was still hawking her handcrafted jewelry from the back room of her L.A. duplex last year when Barneys New York placed a $10,000 order. When the ritzy but financially troubled department store failed to cough up the cash on time, the business-savvy 24-year-old hardly missed a beat. She promptly persuaded rival Neiman Marcus to peddle her wares and now ships 2,000 pieces a month, priced from $250 to $1,250. Today pearl-and-gemstone Sage baubles light up the likes of Lisa Kudrow, Anjelica Huston and Jennifer Flavin.

First person: "There's nothing you can't learn through experience," says Machado, a high school graduate who has never nudged open a design book, let alone a business text.

Second opinion: "I have an intense moment. She has an intense life," says her boyfriend of seven years, musician Darren Lee, 34.

PreSage: Already style-conscious at the age of 5, Machado would "get up at 6 in the morning to put her little outfit together," recalls her sister Erika, 29.

Vitals: Born in Manhattan Beach, Calif. Spent her early years island-hopping around Hawaii with her parents, a carpenter and artist who never married. There, she says, "we went hiking through waterfalls every day." Now lives in Los Angeles with Lee.

Résumé: While working at a string of Melrose Avenue boutiques, Machado began crafting velvet chokers and selling them for $10. (Steven Tyler of Aerosmith was among the first to snap one up.) She added antique ornaments, beaded necklaces and pearl rings to her repertoire and, after scoring the Neiman Marcus order last October, quit her job and moved to her own studio.

Odd job: Performing body wraps at a Manhattan Beach beauty salon. "I was a tiny, 15-year-old girl, and these women in their 30s and 40s are stripping down to their underwear, and I'm slathering cream on them and wrapping them in cellophane."

Grand design: Marrying her beau, buying a house, opening a Sage store and having babies. "I'm obsessed with children," she says. Then she hastily adds, "But I can wait."