Kara Gaffney grew up in the
Main Line town of
Malvern, Pennsylvania, one of the five children of a surgeon, Edmund Gaffney and his wife, Barbara. She designed her first piece of jewelry when she was thirteen from a tourmaline gemstone she acquired during a family safari in Africa. She attended the exclusive
Agnes Irwin School in
Rosemont, Pennsylvania with fashion designer
Tory Burch (they remain friends today) and her first job was at
Ann Taylor in the
King of Prussia mall. She graduated from
Georgetown University with a major in English and a minor in art history and interned at several local public relations agencies as well as
CNN. She then moved to
New York City where she accepted a position in advertising sales with
Harper’s Bazaar in Manhattan. ==Career==