Meet Melissa and Cherise...
From a "focus on fashion" to a discovery of an inspirational mother-daughter relationship…
I was expecting to simply highlight one of our newer 6th & Broadway brands, but after meeting Melissa Wales at the Douglas County Library, I knew I was on a personal and professional adventure. I immediately began anticipating how fun it would be to style Melissa in our Effie’s Heart Literature Dress.
The unique book print design of this particular cotton spandex jersey dress could not be more fitting for an amazing woman dedicated to her role as our Douglas County Teen Services Librarian.
A bit about Melissa: As a young child, she saw daily her dad’s love for reading and with her mom being a teacher, books were a household staple. It's not surprising that their lifestyle served as the very foundation that would intuitively shape Melissa's future.
As a college student, becoming a librarian was not even on Melissa’s career radar. But as many of us have come to realize, our destiny is typically a divine plan of personal stepping stone choices.
Melissa feels blessed to have found her true passion. She loves talking to teens about books, life, memes, and almost anything. She shared that there is not a single bad day at this job and seeing teens go from strangers to friends creates memorable work moments.
She mentioned never knowing what a day will bring... for she enjoys watching teens become their own people with strong opinions. Melissa finds conversing with them to be enlightening and facilitating their library projects to be quite engaging.
Melissa and her hubby/high school sweetheart, Daniel, feel fortunate to be parenting four beautiful children with varied interests and ambitions. They are experiencing much pride as they encourage their remarkable young adults to pursue their personal goals.
Fun Fact: Melissa lights up when you discuss literature! Gone with the Wind is her favorite book. She has read it 3 times! The character, Scarlet, is her spirit animal leading to Melissa's advice: "never give up, girls." A precious life moment occurred while reading page 136, of its 1037 pages... Her water broke disrupting her reading. Obviously, Melissa had more critical things to do, like bring her youngest daughter into the world.
Modeling the Effie’s Heart Clare Twinkle dress is Melissa’s oldest daughter, Cherise.
A bit about Cherise:
Cherise has always loved the arts. She enjoys singing, acting, painting and modeling, and almost everything in-between. Melissa has always encouraged her to be independent and to blaze her own trail in life. Cherise is truly an example of her mom's influence, for she is incredibly passionate about her interests and flourishing with her talents.
One prominent example of this is her henna business: Pharaoh’s Henna, which provides Cherise with her desired opportunity to help everyone feel beautiful in their own skin by accenting imperfections such as moles, freckles and scars. Her expressive, creative nature is also apparent as she paints a new art piece, performs on stage or teaches children to paint.
Fun Fact: Cherise has been very interested in ancient Egyptian history since she was seven years old. So much so that one of her cat's names is Pharaoh and she sports two ancient Egyptian inspired tatoos.
About the beauty of their mother-daughter relationship…💕
Three words that come to mind to describe Melissa and Cherise’s relationship: precious, supportive and collaborative. I could feel a genuine dynamic of trust, love, honesty and respect.
Photographing them was delightful! They made my task of capturing natural photos of them so simple and even educational. What transpired was Cherise guiding Melissa’s poses and as she did this, Melissa became an even more beautiful and confident model. Cherise’s modeling experience and artistic insight proved to be invaluable as we focused on her. She is a natural model with an intriguing artistic flair.
Together, Melissa and Cherise managed to totally immerse me in their heartwarming dynamic making this blogging task beyond delightful and a treasured memory. I feel blessed to have had this opportunity to style Melissa and Cherise. You surely can not anticipate what might transpire when engaging in a day’s “to-do”.
My sincere “thank you” to the two of them!
In closing, just a few personal takeaways that I am eager to share…
During my library visit with Melissa, she hand-selected Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale as my next must-read. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you add it to your must-read list and don’t hesitate to consult Melissa when you need a literature recommendation.
Cherise’s outlook of finding beauty in the mundane is so refreshing! I hope to embrace this mindset daily and encourage all of us to slow down a bit, so we too capture the simple elegance of life.
About the fashion:
Come shop with us to check out our assorted Effie's Heart dresses, Liverpool layering jackets, Hobo handbags, Taos footwear and accessorizing jewelry pieces... oh, and bring along your moms, daughters and granddaughters!!! See you soon! Warmly, Deb