Fantastic Fashion Voyage

    The year is 1977. The place is Newellton, Louisiana. The event is senior yearbook preparation. The votes are counted and I am chosen most likely to succeed. Days later, I am beaming with pride and joy as the school photographer asks me what career path I have chosen to follow in life.  Meekly, yet confidently, I reply, fashion designer.  He quickly points me in the direction of the home economics department’s sewing room. While I smile and giggle uncontrollably, he snaps my picture in that all too familiar area.  This is the place where I was able to shine.

     I learned to sew at 9 years old. From that time on, I had sewn most, if not all, of the clothing I had worn through my senior year in high school. Entrepreneurship is also something that I was inherently born into. As long as I can remember, my mother would make and sell things, like her arts and crafts. My mom was upcycling long before it was popular or even a word. She sold her cooked and baked goods. She also sold hot dogs and Dixie cups to the neighborhood children. Shortly after I began sewing as a child, neighbors and friends all began placing orders with me to make them custom garments. It was fun and I was a natural at it.

     Fast-forward to the fall of 1977. I applied to and was accepted at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles California. I faithfully attended classes in patternmaking, draping, fashion sketching, and design until financial circumstances beyond my control caused me to have to drop out. I had to work full time in order to make ends meet. I put the case top on my sewing machine and many years would pass before I took it off again. I made a big career change and began working in the legal field. 

     Through the ups and downs of being a single parent, homelessness, occasional unemployment, and poverty I weathered many storms and came out on top. In each seemingly devastating disaster of my life, I managed to keep pulling myself up through my faith.

     Keep it moving, and stop in 2007. I meet the love of my life, we marry, buy a beautiful home, have the 50’s politician’s promise of two cars in every garage, and two chickens in every pot. My husband heard all my dreams about my desire to one day be an entrepreneur in the fashion industry. Somewhere along the way he surprised me with a serger sewing machine. All types of memories came flooding back to my mind, but my time was not yet. The recession hit, and we had to take some time and fill in as full-time caregivers for our grandson. That was a wonderful two years where I was able to do with him and for him, things that I could not afford to do when my children were young. Order was restored and our grandson went back to live with his parents. NOW, IT IS TIME!

     Come with me on this journey, as I pursue my entrepreneurial dreams. In addition to design skills, I have always possessed a great fashion sense. Returning to college to take courses in marketing, business and accounting has given me a great business sense as well. I am living my dream and so can you.  One of my favorite scriptures, Luke 22:32 states: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.  Let's go. I got you.