STYLE The Turn of the Screw

A gas cap from an old motorcycle. Speedometer cap rings. Nuts and bolts. For Dallas jewelry designer Stacey Moore, the mundane becomes

magical when hand-crafted out of precious metal-valves turn into crosses, screws into earrings. “It’s about sarcasm,” emphasizes Moore, who wears a clunky, silver ID bracelet on her right wrist, inscribed “DIVA,” a cheeky contrast to her trademark Marilyn Monroe look. “Fashion shouldn’t be taken too seriously.” Indeed. When Moore First began selling her jewelry and accessories four years ago, she called her collection “Poisson Mort.” “That’s a joke,” laughs Moore, 30, “$900 for a belt that means dead Fish in French.”

Her offbeat style and sense of humor are paying off-in addition to her40-piece Stacey Moore collection, she just completed an order of 15,000 pendants for Esprit. She’s now working on a new series of pieces, which Moore says “will be more feminine and autobiographical than her others. The Milagra Collection will be accompanied by a coffeetable book, filled with photo essays and poetry by Moore. In short, there’s nothing Moore, a former mortgage banker, DJ and underground newspaper publisher, thinks she can’t do. “I’ve always known that 1 would be successful.’’