Sunday, October 4, 2015

REBEL RUNWAY


From left to right: Paige Chellette, Saylor Curtis, Kaleigh Cain, Josie Johnston, Brooke Francois, Kiley Brandon, Brai Block and Alana Dollar.

It got a little crazy in September for us! We had that Trunk Show at Rodeo in Ruston and then the following week we were double booked for Rebel Runway and the Junior League Market in Lafayette. When Pam Spencer had initially asked us about participating, I said there was no way since we would be out of town. I mentioned it to Brent and he thought we really needed to do it and support the school regardless of us being there or not. Pam assured me that she would make it as easy as possible on us (and she did!) So...we were going to in Rebel Runway this year.
  We had all of the 8 models come over to our house and try on the clothes. Here was Kiley trying on the deer shirt and beanie.
We were lucky enough to get the following girls as our models..
1)Paige Chellette- She is a senior Cheerleader at WMHS and dances with Linda Lavender. She is also in Character Counts and National Honor Society. She was looking very cute in our Bulldawg Dress.
2) Kaleigh Cain- An adorable 8 year old from George Welch that takes gymnastics. She wore the hot pink Buck with Chucks tee.
3) Brai Block- She is in middle school at Good Hope and has modeled for us before. So sweet! She had on the gray and black Buck with Chucks Football tee.
4) Kiley Brandon- She is a Soph Cheerleader at WMHS who loves to jump on the trampoline and takes from Totally Tumbling. She had on the new long sleeve 2015 Deer tee.
5) Josie Johnston- Another precious 7 year old girl from George Welch. She loves art and gymnastics and rocked our new Louisiana Tree Rat baseball tee.
6) Brooke Francois- She is a freshman cheerleader at WMHS. She does All Stars and loves to Kayak- how cool!! She wore our oatmeal colored Cypress Tree Sweatshirt.
7) Saylor Curtis- A sweet 9 year old from George Welch who takes gymnastics from Totally Tumbling and has an older sister. She looked so good in our purple pelican tee.
8) Alana Dollar- She is a senior Cheerleader at WMHS who likes to run, is in Character Counts and wants to go to ULM and study Speech Pathology. She wore our Louisiana Tree Rat Football tee.

 We wanted to make sure they loved the shirt they were wearing, because we let them keep the shirt for modeling for us! They were excited to find this out. I had wanted the girls to have a fun Grunge look..think Flannel! think Beanies!! I did some research on Pinterest and got pics for the girls to see as our inspiration.
I loved the early 90's...love Pearl Jam, Nirvana, etc. I am truly my most comfortable in my ripped jeans, a hat and some flannel or a sweatshirt. My mom has always laughed that I was always wearing ripped jeans before they were "in".
  So, we went to work finding flannel for the girls and beanies and making sure their whole wardrobe looked good. I cruised through our local Goodwill and ordered a few items off Etsy and Amazon too. I then took photos of all the outfits and sent to the girls to see.



We printed off sheets of their entire look and attached to their outfits to make it easy for them when they would go to put on the night of the event. Some of the high school girls were modeling in multiple stores clothes during the program.
Phoebe helping :) (I have no idea where this tongue thing came from, but she seems to do it now in every picture!!!)
  It was bothering me that I wasn't going to have anyone to help the models or take pics at the event, so I recruited 3 great friends to help represent Mr P's!! Allison Ford, Jill May and Katie Bonnette (who owns Rodeo in Ruston) did an amazing job capturing the whole thing. I told them to think of themselves like Joan Rivers + Victor Cascio working the red carpet at Rebel Runway. I wanted PICS, I wanted NAMES, I wanted DESCRIPTIONS, etc etc etc (HAHAH). The Preasure was ON!!
  I got some cute "Before" pics from them of our 4 younger models..
Brai, Kaleigh, Saylor, and Josie
And a fun one!! We will say they were doing a "Phoebe" lol
Close up of Kaleigh, Saylor and Josie- love these looks so much!!

Here is our mannequin we had on display in the Lobby sporting our orange logo baseball tee, flannel, cut-offs and one of our baseball hats.
And then they saw my Fav Creative Soul Sista/Motivational Speaker / Wonder Woman aka Melanie Massey and her family.
Mel's daughters ~Ellie and Gabbi were modeling for Cara's and looked precious.
Check out Josie's cute pink chucks in this pic.

Melanie is so funny! She sent me some pics of Allison in action
and told me they were working hard. for Mr P's... I was cracking up as the photos kept popping up on my phone....She sent me a thumbs up
and I sent her one back from Lafayette.
heheheeh
  Then Katie started sending me pics of Jill and Allison taking photos
and then looking at the photos to make sure they looked ok.
(hahaha) And in the middle of all of this, Allison's phone died!!! I think she about died too!!! But, it all worked out. I got to see tons of cute pics from the event of the girl on the stage in our designs.

Even got to see one of the entire Block Family.
Here was a pic of some of the Rebel Dancers in a tee we designed for them for camp

 Everyone said this Rebel Runway show was one of the best in years-probabaly because the super talented Edward Morales had a lot to do with it and Mackenzie Salter choreographed it!! Big thank you to Pam Spencer for making it so easy on me. They came and picked up all of our clothes, our rack, mannequin, etc and returned it all too.
  Big thank you to Allison, Jill and Katie!! I love each of you!! And the final pic of you guys in all the clothes is a framer :)  The Mr P's Hurricane had definitely hit the West Monroe Convention Center. Im so appreciative to have such wonderful friends... xoxoxoxox!

Thanks for reading~
Lissy

Our next event scheduled is Holidays in Cedartown in Ruston Nov 12th, 13th and 14th at the Ruston Civic Center.

www.mrpstees.com

Friday, October 2, 2015

GREEK!!


So, why are we designing greek tees? This has been a discussion since our last Trunk Show at Rodeo last Fall. We kept having girls tell us how bad they wanted a Mr P's version of their sorority tees. I think they were tired of the same thing. So, fast forward 9 months later... We worked all summer long and early fall getting designs together and getting our licenses. Never dreamed it would be such a process! Lots of research went into designing these tees.  From understanding the different symbols, to talking to girls in different sororities to find out their likes and dislikes....then, getting approval from nationals on the designs.
Our plan was to create a design for each of the sororities at ULM and at Louisiana Tech, and then expand if the demand was there. Since we are known for our designs being hand drawn original creations, I wanted to do something more than just their Greek Letters. Anyone can do that!! :). So, here goes.....
Introducing the Sigma Kappa Heart Baseball Tee....
Ravishing(!) Eva Edinger, who is also Miss Tech, is shown here in front of her lodge at La Tech. My friend Allison Ford (who was a Sigma at Tech) always reminds me that "One Heart, One Way" :)
These photographs were taken by the talented Breanne Adele Mertz (check her out on Instagram under @breanneadelephotography)

Britney Bass~ I hope you are loving all this purple!!!!!

Next up...The Alpha Chi Omega Lyre Tee....

Pretty Kerrigan was beside the front door at the Alpha Chi Lodge. Love the red sleeves with her red lips. Did I mention that all the girls makeup was done by Kasie Nelson with www.radiantyoubeauty.com?  Kerrigan is competing in the next Miss Tech pageant...GOOD LUCK!!


I was an Alpha Chi at Tech. Some of the best years of my life!!! Here is flash back to 1999...Adored all of these girls so much. It amazes me that was 16 years ago

And now we have the Phi Mu Lion Tee....
Beautiful Margaret was by the cute Phi Mu Letters. Love how they did the glitter on them.
I gotta tell ya'll, our #1 employee Jordan is president of Phi Mu at ULM. So, you know she had a HUGE part in this design. She was actually the one who said to make the lion in two shades of pink. So glad I listened to her!! The first design we came up with had him with a gray mane and Jordan laughed and told me he looked "Dusty"!! I agreed~hahaah
 My sister Deana was a Phi Mu at Millsaps in Jackson, Mississippi. She loved it!!

And now we have our Kappa Delta White Rose Tee...

Gorgeous Emily in front of the KD lodge on the sidewalk.

Super Cute with her dark jeans and chucks.

And this week, we just got in the

Alpha Omicron Pi Panda Tee...

Love the Panda!!!

I can't wait to get some pics of an AOPi in it. 
We have these tees available online at www.mrpstees.com or at Rodeo Boutique in Ruston, LA
or at Ksera in West Monroe, LA.

I just got the word this week that we got licenses accepted for Chi Omega and Tri Delta.  I have been working on sketches for those two sororities. 
An Owl for Chi O! 
Are you wishing we were designing your sorority a tee?? Let us know!! We appreciate all feedback and ideas. I have quite a few girls ask us down in Lafayette about a design for Alpha Delta Pi..so, I am in the process of applying for a license for them too. 

On a side note, back in April, I was called and asked by Erica Moser Ryan to create a design for her sorority sister Georgia Boswell. Georgia and Erica were both KD's with my best friend Rachel and roommate Kelly (and a ton of other KD's who I adore~ Kristen, Jennifer, Meg, Meredith, Sarah, Julie, Carey, Missy, Kelsey, Marie, Beka, Rebecca, Lindsey, Lauren and on and on). Georgia had sadly lost her son Drew when he was young and had created an amazing non profit called Drew's Tunes. Drew's Tunes mission is to provide musical instruments to children and support Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood research. I did a lot of texting back and forth with Katie Flurry about the design, and came us with this....The four stars represent Georgia and her family.
You guys ought to know by now that I love drawing alligators!! We donated this drawing to Drew's Tunes and they came up with the cutest layout for it. 
"When Words Fail, Music Speaks"
 I remember Corre Stegall always talking to us about the "Tech Family" and I truly buy into this. I have experienced it and am so thankful for the friends I made during my college days there. No, I wasn't a KD, but I am a mother of young children and a Bulldawg and I'm happy to help support this great organization that gives back to young people. To order one, go to www.drewstunes.org.


Thanks for reading!!! 
Love 
Lissy

P.S Rebel Runway Blog really is coming up NEXT!!