True Dedication to Custom Apparel
Monette Franicevich Marange, owner of Airbrush By Monette
It shows true dedication when you won’t give up on your business even when you are evacuated from your home several times and even have to rebuild from the ground up. Monette Franicevich Marange is the owner of Airbrush by Monette in Port Sulphur, LA. She lives right on the coast and has been the target of several hurricanes. But she doesn’t let that bring her down; she loves her local community and business so much that she stays near her home rather than relocating, and always goes back to her airbrushing and screen printing business when natural disasters strike.
Monette discovered air brushing when she was in 10th grade. She went to Panama City for spring break, where she saw a person airbrushing t-shirts. She grew fascinated with the art and has been making her own airbrushed creations since 1988. Monette has been in business for herself since 2000, which was the same year that she discovered heat pressing. One of her customers came into her shop carrying an Easy Prints® box. They weren’t sure what to do with it so they brought it to Monette, thinking that she may have some use for it. She called us up and became a dealer of heat pressed merchandise soon after that.
Airbrush by Monette is on the coast of Louisiana and has been through several natural disasters. In 2005, Monette’s business was completely wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. She was forced to relocate and change professions, at this time she became a dental assistant and still keeps her certification current, just in case she ever gets put into that situation again. In January 2007, she returned to her home town of Port Sulphur and was fortunate enough to receive grant money that allowed her to rebuild her business from the ground up, making it bigger and better. In 2008 she was evacuated from her home for 3 weeks because of Hurricanes Gustave & Ike. Then she was gone for 4 weeks in 2010 due to the BP Oil Spill and again in 2012 due to Hurricane Isaac. Monette explained that the reason that they get evacuated for so long is “because [they] have one road in and out of [their] town and it gets flooded with 4-5 feet of water for weeks, and [they] can’t drive through it.”
View from Airbrush By Monette after Hurricane Katrina
Monette has a great networking opportunity with her own twin sister, Marisha Smith. Marisha owns another local custom apparel location, by the name of Marisha’s Sewing Shoppe. Here she does embroidery and alterations. Both sisters offer a form of custom apparel and before Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, they even resided in the same shop. Now they refer business to each other on a regular basis.
Left: Easy Prints® Layout #QRT-12 Right: Modified (Clip Art #X18G-28)
When marketing her business, every month is a season. August is back to school and when she sells airbrushed book bag straps for $10 each. For September, she will sell football clothing and merchandise. Right now, she sells to locals and one of her biggest customers is the local school. When purchasing transfers she always uses Easy Prints®, she changes out images, adds text, and stylizes it how she sees appropriate to keep it an Easy Print® and at Easy Print® pricing while at the same time making it her own. Above is an Easy Print® that she modified for the school! Monette has even airbrushed the Transfer Express Screen Prints. The image below is a great example!
Left: Easy Prints® Layout #QBK-175 Right: Same Layout – Airbrushed
She promotes Airbrush by Monette through Facebook, e-mailing, and texting. She is even looking into starting a Pinterest page for her business, with inspiration from the Easy Prints® Pinterest page. Monette will be attending her first craft show in 15 years in the upcoming holiday season; to sell a few items while promoting her business.
We love what Monette does with our products and hope that her business continues to grow in the future!
If you would like to check out the website for Airbrush by Monette, click here!