I’ve always been interested in sewing and how fabric works. When I was nine I asked my parents for a Barbie. I didn’t want to send her on a date with Ken, I wanted to make clothes for her. They politely explained that was a toy for girls, and bought me a G.I. Joe instead. He was an astronaut, so I took his parachute and cut a hole in the middle to make a skirt for him. When they saw me twirling him to watch the fabric swish, I had a Barbie within a week. I took her to the family Christmas at my grandparent’s farm, and my Grandmother gave me some quilt scraps to sew with. As I tucked and stitched on tiny garments I heard my grandmother tell my mother “Marie, someday he’s going to do something with that talent.” Now, I still enjoy holding a piece of fabric up to a dressform, and asking it which way it wants to go to become a garment.

I claim that I taught myself to sew, but realistically, many talented people influenced me over the years- I spent twenty years as a Costume Designer in professional Regional Theatre, and eventually opened my own business, “Cast of Thousands Costume Studio” in Little Rock. In Theatre I learned to “figure it out fast and cheap”, not to mention the amount of sewing I did in a day, every day, gave me incredible speed. It all got to be too hectic though- Theatre works you hard and pays you not much, so I left home for the mountains of Northwest Arkansas, landing in Fayetteville to start something new and unknown.

I met a sweet woman who managed a boutique there, and she persuaded me to design a line of clothing for mature women that she would carry in her store. She taught me that clothing should be simple in design, timeless, with one great detail. Once she phoned me yelling “I just sold eleven garments to the same woman!” When she left town and the boutique closed, I opened my own store in a shared studio space for five years right on the town square.

I went through a time when I wanted to be home more, so I closed the store and sold the clothes from my website, wholesaled to other stores, and set up trunk shows in people’s homes, but soon realized I loved running a store and missed working directly with the customers. I reopened the shop in Eureka Springs, a crazy little tourist town an hour away. I later bought a house here, and that’s pretty much where I am to date.

I am very fortunate to be able to support myself with what I see as my passion and my talent. I have a serious love of all things of beauty, particularly those in nature, and I bring that to my designs. Living in the Ozarks, I see beauty everywhere I look. I suppose I could pursue fame and fortune, but as I approach fifty, I choose to focus on what’s really important in life. A simple, beautiful existence.