Where Are They Now? Newsweek’s Lesbian Chic Cover Girls

When you speak with jewelry designer Catherine Angiel, you gather that her lifelong hobby of drumming has taught her to make noise without saying a word. The native New Yorker accomplished exactly that in 1993, when she and Ashley Herrin, then her partner, detonated into American mailboxes as the cover girls for the pivotal Newsweek magazine article that trumpeted emerging lesbian visibility. Pictured as an attractive, strikingly ordinary lesbian couple in mainstream media, they were introduced with the tentative title: “Lesbians Coming Out Strong. What Are the Limits of Tolerance?”

Now, in the era of Ellen, Rosie and The L Word, it is easy to forget the incredible impact of that cover story, which saturated airwaves and newspapers and eventually even graced a billboard in Asia. Angiel recounts that a Midwest postal worker was fired because he refused to deliver the magazine.

“I consider myself a warrior at heart,” says Angiel, now 45, seated in Gallery
Eclectic, her Greenwich Village store that sells rock ’n’ roll inspired jewelry
to celebrity clients such as Anne Heche and Ethan Hawke. “It’s like you go to
war,” she explains of her decision to appear on the magazine cover in the wake
of disappointing, stereotypical press coverage of the historic March on Washington
in 1993. “Somebody’s got to do it.”

Angiel, who was not quoted within the Newsweek story, admits that
she believes the content could have been better, although it provided a desperately
needed starting point. Indeed, the article reads largely like a handbook for
curious heterosexual onlookers, complete with a glossary of terms such as “butch”
and “vanilla,” as well as a sidebar on the exotic locale of Northampton,
Mass. “I remember reading it and thinking, ‘They’re still
not getting it, but that’s OK; it’s a beginning,’” she
recalls.

The overwhelmingly positive public consequences were equally felt in Angiel’s personal relationship with Herrin, who, Angiel reveals, came out to her parents through the cover story. The experience made the pair closer, but Angiel says they eventually grew apart, and Herrin later moved. The two have not spoken in six years, and Herrin could not be located for an interview with AfterEllen.com.

Shortly after she achieved fame in 1993, Angiel did what any lesbian jewelry designer on the front lines of the culture wars would do. She launched a new business and began to produce commitment bands for gay and lesbian couples. “It all kind of worked in synchronicity,” she observes. “It was really great.”

With her shop, Gallery Eclectic, Angiel has established herself as a source of edgy but sophisticated jewelry that blends street style and spirituality. Her “Dangerous” collection works precious gems (black diamonds are her favorite) into tattoo-like designs of dagger crosses and dragons, as well as the classic anchors that would decorate any respectable sailor’s bicep. The pieces are featured in a short documentary about Angiel that recently aired on The Life Network in Canada.

As a successful lesbian in a jewelry industry dominated by conservative male opinions, Angiel acknowledges that she is uniquely positioned to change attitudes on critical social issues like same-sex marriage. “Lesbians are now above ground, but we have to keep fighting,” she urges. She is deeply involved in the marriage equality movement as both a businessperson and an advocate. While not married herself, she reports that she has been happily involved with her girlfriend, also a retailer in New York, for 18 months.

Angiel still hits the drum kit and jams with friends from time to time. She also loves to cook and garden at her second home in the Hamptons. In the coming months, she plans to launch a new jewelry collection and place her designs in select, high-end retail shops. “I pretty much see myself as the Marc Jacobs of jewelry … but not quite Marc Jacobs,” she says, and laughs.