Fashion Fusion 2016

Wheewwwww- Another Fashion Fusion in the books!!! This years was BIGGER than ever since graduating to the Monroe Civic Center. Expectations were high and practice started over a month ago for all the boutiques. Here were some of our girls practicing in the Good Hope parking lot.

Cirque de Chic was this years theme (I kept picturing Pink!)

 and money for the event was still going to help the local Childrens Coalition.  Debbies School of Dance put on the production and I know Kesley Bourg Tanner worked her tail off to make all the segments special.

 This year, we knew we would be having both little kids, teens and adults in our segment. We asked our good friends Meredith Pilcher, Allison Ford and Ronnie Matz to model with Brent for the segment along with little kids Regan Pilcher and Paisley Tanner.

Paisley had on the new pink Whooping Crane tee and Regan wore the new evergreen Mermaid tee. 

Then, our young teens were the brother sister duo Julianna and Jordan (why can't I find any pics of these two??!?! so frustrating!!) and six Debbie Bourg dancers Lizzie, Laurell, Kaitlynn, Victoria, Rhonda, and Caroline.

  The show itself was great! Tables were decorated with cute pop corn centerpieces

and the stage had a huge industrial looking circus set up with a slide and swings.

Food was there from Tummy Yummy Creations, Newks, Catfish Charlies, Waterfront Grill, and Chef Pat Nolan. 

Three big screens allowed everyone to see closeup. We had invited all of our friends who have helped us this past year with volunteering at events and our employees, plus our models and their spouses and/or family members. Love all of you (Ashley, Sandy, Anne, Amy, Lisa, Julie, Kourtney, Beth, Kelly, Ryan, Katie, MaKenzie, Jordan, BreAnne, Haley, Staci, Meg, Eva and Monica) and so appreciate everything you do to help our "little t shirt company".

We love having them as our guests to say "Thanks"!!
  Our main song was  "Downtown" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. We made sure all of our models had on Converse shoes and the dancers had orange bandannas tied somewhere on their body like the Mr P's Gang (Thanks Jill Keifenheim for the idea!!).
  We were the opening store (Wow!) and I gotta say they did fantastic.

Allison reminded me of a bad a** Sharon Stone look alike from the movie Basic Instinct in her fitted Tiger dress and slicked back hair-super cool!

She owned the stage!!! Brent and Meredith came out with Paisley and Regan and did great.

Everyone kept commenting how they could tell Meredith was an "experienced" dancer!!

hahaha yeah!! Ronnie rocked the Cowboy Rex tee and his faux hawk.

Jordan came out dancing in his tiger shirt and Julianna looked so pretty in her Whooping Crane tee.
  Some of the Highlights of the show were seeing cousin Taylor Antley model for Eleven 26 Boutique, sweet Caroline Ernst rocking it for The Flirty Ginger on her birthday

(here she was pre show getting ready)

( and Lisa Perillo too!!), the pretty dresses on models for the Twisted Peacock

, my good friend Monica in some gothic makeup for Moody Blues (here she is pre show with Allison)

And then Monica walking the catwalk...

 Cutie Patootie had some adorable little girls with big "suckers".

Herringstones had those two gorgeous twins you also see modeling for them on Instagram in black and white and feathers.

    The hit of the night ( and I'm not just saying this because Brent was in it....) was Ron Alexanders section.

Those guys strutted it!!!

So impressed of them all but especially Brent, Ryan and Tommy Perkins and Tommy Block. Nothing like a man in a suit!!! Purrrrrr!!!!  All the women (and a few dudes!) were cat calling them. Ron Alexander had to of been pleased. The funniest though was that the guys had on eye liner...or should I say "Guy Liner". Brent sent this selfie to me before the show. I was cracking up!

I told Brent he reminded me of Johnny Depp in the Pirate Movie..hehehe

 I'm pretty sure he gave me the bird!!  When the night was over, Monica had to share some baby wipes with him to help get it off.

So funny!!
  Other highlights were seeing Sydney Fincher

and Brai Block

 model for Ksera's Kee Kee Tees, and seeing Kelly West model for The Toggery.

Duck and Dressing had a motorcycle in their segment along with local celebrity Sadie Robertson.

Sorry this pic is blurry!

The evening ended with Clint Downings recycled interpretation... Those fierce ladies rocked it with dresses made from straws, cups, etc.

Clint- you really do belong in New York.
 We finished out the night with a packed house enjoying the After Party at River and Rail. My head hit the pillow at 1am.

 I thought I was going to die. I am such an old women now!! hahahahah Little Regan was out too!!

  Big thank you to my sister Holly for keeping the kids!!!!

Thanks again for reading. Stay tuned for all about the cool tee we designed to help Med Camps of Louisiana.

Love
Lissy

P.S. We want to welcome aboard BreAnne Bearden. She is our newest employee and is a freshman at ULM majoring in psychology. She graduated from West Ouachita with honors. We love her and the two P's love her!! She is taking the place of Jordan who graduates this spring and got a job with Vantage. We are going to miss you !

BreAnne in the T Shirt Room

www.mrpstees.com

Abby and the New Horse shirt.....Run for the Roses

Some animals are just special. Abby is one of those. She is a little girls dream horse-Big and White with the Prettiest face. She is the horse you envision the Princess riding away on to meet up with her Prince. My daughter Phoebe has always been fascinated by her. All of her play horses at home are named Abby. Here she is beside her big fav. :) Hard to believe that this mare will be 25 years old next month. Abby is owned by my good friend Meghan Nichols. 

  Let me back track a little...Meghan and I and her sister Jennifer Pesnell have been horse back riding together since we were young girls at Foxbriar Farms in Calhoun. We all went to West Monroe High School together and Jennifer and I were even roommates for a year at Tech together. Their entire family is very precious to me. I sadly had to put my horse Tango down about 5 years ago and Meghan stayed by his side for his last breaths.

I couldn't bare to be there. That is what kind of true friend she is.  Through our teenage and adult years,  Meghan became a much better rider than me and is now MY trainer! She started her own barn back in Dec of 2012 called Lone Oak Farms. It is in Choudrant, LA. I truly love learning from her and try to go out and ride once a week. My kids have been coming out since before they can remember.
   So, back to the design, I have always wanted to go to the Kentucky Derby. It is at the TOP of my Bucket List. Beside the excitement of the race, I am fascinated by the hats the girls wear!!!

(I stole this pic off the internet)

It hit me back in January to design a shirt with a HORSE all dressed up like it was going to The Derby....And what better horse than the very classy Abby!!

They don't get any fancier than she is.  

Here she is jumping high!! In her younger days, she competed in High Junior/AO Jumpers (you hunter/jumper horse peeps out there know what this is). Even won $10,000 one time!!! 
  So, what does one do when they create a special tee depicting a horse wearing a hat and flowers??? Thats right... you schedule a photo shoot with the actual horse!! 
  To begin, I went on a hat hunt for the shoot and ended up at JJ's in Downtown Monroe.

These people are PROUD of their hats!! Who knew they were so expensive?

I will have a new appreciation for ladies I see at church all decked out in their suits and matching hats. I found a pretty pink one that I thought would work (it better! No returns on hats!! hahaha). I left feeling quite fancy with my special hat container.

My beloved baseball hats never got this kind of treatment before. :)
  I also ran into our local West Monroe Tractor Supply and picked up a couple of pairs for rubber boots for the models.

The rain was on its way and we figured we would need these....We did!
  Talk about R-A-I-N!!! We all had to drive through a monsoon to get to the barn.

My phone kept going off because of emergency flash flood alerts.

Im driving down I-20 wondering if I have completely lost my mind trying to make this happen in this kind of weather. But, the other part of me kept thinking how hard it is to line up a horse, 3 models, a photographer, and a couple of creative floral designers....we NEEDED to make this work..
   Speaking of creative designers,  I had seen on Instagram where Taylor Bennett and Lindsey Lowe had started a business called Fine Folks (www.finkfolks.la)

 Sounded cool and I always like to support other local businesses.. I approached them about creating something unique for the shoot. Their floral piece of art was way above what I had ever hoped for. They not only made our t shirt design come to life, but they also took the time to hand deliver it (in the pouring rain) and place it on Abbys neck.
I loved watching them add last minute flowers to the garland so it looked fresh. It was BEAUTIFUL!!!

  When I arrived at the barn Meghan and Jennifer were dong last minute touch ups on Abby.

Sweet Eduardo had been out earlier in the day and had given Abby a bubble bath.

She looked impeccable. Taylor and Lindsey carefully placed the flowered garland around her neck and decided it needed to lay a little asymmetrical. Good Eye Fine Folks. :)

  Heather Land was the photographer for the shoot. She is the epitome of cool, calm and sweet. Perfect for this crazy thunderstorm event with animals and models. She got some pics of Abby before the models arrived. 

  I had originally pictured the models outside in the pasture barefoot around Abby, but if there is one thing I have learned in life, you just have to go with the flow. Plans change. Weather happens. So, when our three pretty sisters arrived, I handed out rubber boots to go with their pants and shorts and new tees.

First up was little Carissa Wallace who is in Kindergarten at Kiroli School. She listened carefully to everything Heather wanted her to do. I was so impressed with this little one. Check out these pics...

 Next we had her middle sister Auburn Wallace who is a senior at West Monroe High School. She will be heading to La Tech in the Fall. Love her hair!! Heather got some very nice ones of her too. 

Lastly, we have the married oldest sister~ Breanne Adele Mertz who everyone calls "Bre". She had actually done some photo shoots for us before, but as the photographer!! It was great to see her on the other side of the camera. She moved wonderfully and really interacted with the horse nicely. 

  The behind the scenes pics were hilarious-

Tons of flag waving, peppermints being handed out and paper crinkling...anything everyone could do to get Abby to perk up her ears.

Then Heather was constantly getting licked by Jules the Horse.

The salt residue from her afternoon cross fit workout was exactly what they thought they needed. I think I was just mainly standing there biting my finger nails and watching it all unfold. hahaha
  In the end, we got little Carissa sitting on top of Abby for a group shout

and then got some funny pics of Abby in her special JJ's Fashion Derby hat. 

Thank you Abby for being such a good sport through all of this. You deserve all the carrots and peppermints that your sweet soul desires. 
  If you want one of these special tees, check out our website at www.mrpstees.com  Adult v neck tees are S-XXL $28 and youth crew neck are 2t-Youth12 $24. Ready to ship.

  Stay tuned for Fashion Fusion.....

Love
Lissy