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Mayfair Jewelers’ Shirley Kulchinsky dies at 86
Shirley Kulchinsky, the trailblazing matriarch of Long Island, N.Y. retailer Mayfair Jewelers, died Saturday.
Born on Feb. 11, 1929, Kulchinsky was in the jewelry business from the start. Her father was a custom peddler who bought his jewelry from a store on Canal Street in New York City owned by a man named Shmeil (Sam) Kulchinsky, the father of Shirley’s future husband, Seymour.
Seymour Kulchinsky was in the refinery and wholesale business in the city, as the family owned SDK Refining Company on Eldridge Street.
In the 1950s Shirley Kulchinsky talked him into settling down on Long Island and buying a retail store there. She was the reason Mayfair Jewelers, which was named after the shopping center it was in, began.
In the late 1960s, their oldest son Dan joined the family business, followed by grandchildren Justin and Lauren.
Shirley Kulchinsky was a trailblazer in the jewelry industry, her family said. She had an eye for new and exciting designers and she and her husband traveled the world to bring back the best jewels. She also was trusted and beloved by her clients, could talk to anyone and could “write books on how (to) sell.”
In addition to her position in the family business, Kulchinsky was a vice president of the National Association of Woman Business Owners, as she was a passionate believer in women having both a career in a family, a rarity for women of her generation.
She retired “kicking and screaming” to Florida, her family said; indeed, in a May 2013 profile of Mayfair Jewelers by The Centurion, her granddaughter Lauren Kulchinsky-Levison was quoted as saying that her grandmother, who was 83 at the time, would still work every day if the family allowed it.
Kulchinsky was a daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and “one hell of jeweler.”
“She was an elegant lady, an inspiration to many and will be missed,” her family said in a statement.
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