Her unique jewelry has star appeal

But actress Jessica Biel’s love for the piece might also have something to do with it.

“She’s been wearing it like crazy and everyone asks about it,’’ the Nantucket jewelry designer said, sitting in her new store, Posh on South Water Street.

Halle Berry, Jessica Alba, and scads of other starlets also have been spotted in Hicks’s whimsical silver paisley earrings, agate pendants, and cocktail rings.

The designer’s celebrity connection came in 2004, when Hicks introduced herself to Sarah Jessica Parker at a Nantucket AIDS benefit. The two chatted, and Hicks later sent the “Sex and the City’’ fashionista a few pieces. (Parker called and left a thank-you message on her machine - Hicks is still kicking herself for missing that call.)

In 2007, Hicks appeared at a Golden Globes celebrity style lounge, where she met everyone from Eva Longoria Parker to Brooke Shields and Paris Hilton. Word of Hicks’s creations spread.

The designer’s star-studded career began serendipitously. Growing up a self-described “shy teenager’’ in Worcester, Hicks planned to spend one summer like any other teen: relaxing and hanging out with friends. Her mom, however, had other ideas, and armed Hicks with beads and jewelry-making supplies.

The next stop was the Worcester Center for Crafts, where she saw artists working with metal for the first time.

“Something seriously came alive in me, it was like a light switch turned on,’’ the 36-year-old Hicks said. She was hooked. She headed to community college and then to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, where she majored in metals and jewelry-making.

After graduation, she landed a job at Diana Kim England’s Goldsmiths in Nantucket, making Nantucket basket jewelry. And over the next few years, Hicks worked for various island jewelers and clothing stores including Jewel of the Isle, Eye of the Needle, and Vis-a-Vis. In 2003, she decided to launch her own line.

“I’m so into fashion and I love clothes; I was ready to make edgy jewelry,’’ she said. (Her favorite designers include Diane von Furstenberg and Nanette Lepore.)

Since then, Hicks has created several collections. There are gold cut-out pendants reminiscent of giraffe skin and earrings shaped to look like nautiluses. Pieces inspired by peacock feathers and butterfly wings are mixed in with lightning bolts and horseshoe charms. One of her newest designs involves pressing metal with lace.

“I’ll see something, maybe a pattern in nature,’’ Hicks said, “and think about how I can create it in metal.’’

When she’s not hobnobbing with the stars, Hicks can be found on Miacomet Beach on Nantucket with her two kids, eating dinner out with friends, or taking Krav Maga classes (a variation of martial arts). Though she first opened Posh on Second Wharf, she decided to move it to Water Street after two seasons.

Her new space is larger and closer to Nantucket’s town center. There are leopard print chairs among the cases filled with Hicks’s jewelry and handbags by Tucker Paisley. Mirrors and light fixtures, plucked from New York boutiques, dot the orange and gold walls. Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance’’ plays in the background.

One customer comes in and calls Hicks’s jewelry “detailed’’ and “delicate.’’ Another buys a necklace with a smiley face pendant on her way to the ferry.

Hicks has her regular local shoppers and her celebrity fans, but is there one person she’d still like to see in her designs?

“Jennifer Aniston. She just has great style, she’s beautiful,’’ she said. “Team Aniston all the way. But, I wouldn’t mind seeing Angelina Jolie in my jewelry either.’’

It’s probably just a matter of time.