The inspiration for Femmegems, a jewelry store and custom design workshop in Greenwich, Conn., came from an unlikely source: New York City’s no-frills bead emporiums. In 1999, owner Lindsay Cain, a former New Yorker, started selling jewelry she handcrafted from materials bought from local bead shops. One day, she was struck by the idea that “no one has taken the bead store to the next level. You walk in, you buy the supplies you need, and then it’s a living room ­project,” she says. “I thought, What if I opened a place that was designer jewelry and design-your-own-jewelry?” Cain opened the first Femmegems in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood in 2002, which quickly caught the attention of iconic Fifth Avenue store Henri Bendel. Soon after, the retailer debuted a shop-in-shop inside the department store and another inside Marshall Field’s venerable State Street flagship in C