Barb built Southern Mess Originals from custom work into a T-shirt line stocked in over 500 stores. She uses real moms as models, runs it as a family business, and focuses on building community and positive body image for women.
Foreign. Hi, I'm Barb and I'm the owner of Southern Mess Boutique. I want to share with you a little bit about how we got started and why I love what I do. A few years ago, I had started my own company doing a lot of monochroming and custom work. And I soon realized that I had all these ideas of my own that I wasn't getting to do. And that's kind of where Southern Mess Originals evolved. We're now in over 500 stores across the country and you can find our T shirts all over. It's really exciting to kind of see that change and see that people love our shirts just as much as we do. We are Southern, sassy and true, and we really stick to that with our shirt line. We have everything from quotes that make you happy to maybe make you laugh. We do all of our own shoots here on the ranch and it's been a lot of fun. It's kind of a family affair. I shoot the girls, my husband will pitch in and help, and even my 11 year old daughter has gotten really good with the camera. And then I go in and I do all of the editing, which is very minimal. One thing that was really important to me when we started was to utilize real women, not professionals and not people that didn't fit our demographic. And so all of our models are moms. They work, they have real bodies with their own set of insecurities and confidence. And one thing that's really important to us more than fashion is building a community of women and sharing a positive body image. That's something that I can pass down to my girls and I hope will kind of set the bar for fashion in the future. Not everybody fits in the same mold for fashion, and so we try to get outside of that box as much as we can and really showcase what you're going to look like in those clothes. Because our models fit our demographic, we are able to show you what your body is going to potentially look like and how the fit is and how the cut is and the quality that you can get. And it's the been just a really, really, really fun ride and something that really has inspired me to push further and break the fashion boundaries and comfort zones and have some fun. The question I get asked most often is why? Like why this? Why start your own online store? And aside from always having a dream of owning my own company, it's my family. I want my girls to know that they can do anything they want and they don't have to fit into this perfect little box of expectations that our society makes. And I want them to see how hard their mom and dad work and that they can do that, too. And with a lot of sacrifice and commitment. The moon is seriously the limit. That's my why.
