FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - Mary Byrd remembers that Friday in late March when the car she was riding in pulled to a stop in front of the luxurious Gansevoort Hotel in Manhattan.
“When we got out of the car, photographers were waiting for us,” she says. “And all these people are like, ’Who’s getting out of the car?’ And I’m like, ’I’m just Mary from Indiana.’ “
For one incredible, memorable weekend, “Mary from Indiana” was among five women chosen by J.C. Penney to pose for a fashion shoot.
The weekend of March 27 to 29 was part of a promotional campaign in which Penney customers were invited to New York City to show off their personal style wearing the store’s spring clothing line. Some of Byrd’s photos can be found on the J.C. Penney website, and a video is on YouTube under JCPenney spring muses.
“They treated us like we were really some models,” says Byrd, who was “discovered” by J.C. Penney via Byrd’s blog, curlybyrdiechirps.blogspot.com. “When I first saw the promotional shot where it said Mary, J.C. Penney, Fort Wayne, Indiana - it was little old me of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It made me feel proud that I could bring something back to the city, even though it’s something people might not care about.”
Byrd’s journey took roots two years ago when she began her fashion blog, The Journal Gazette reported (https://bit.ly/1Fgomeq ). She was 40 and single and wanted to step out on a limb. “I was nervous,” she says. “It’s putting yourself out there and you’re opening yourself up to criticism. It’s kind of a therapy thing. When you’re 40, you still want to feel relevant.
“I have a mother, I have sisters, I have friends who have gone through stuff in their lives. And maybe they’re not feeling so good on the inside. I feel like my remedy is, ’Let me find you a cute dress.’ I know it’s not going to solve everything, but for that moment, have you feel beautiful and special as they’re going through life’s pressures. It sounds so minute, but it is a passion of mine.”
So she offered fashion tips to anyone who would go to her blog, and she used herself as a clothing model. Many of the clothes she wore came from J.C. Penney.
And somebody from Penney’s noticed.
“One day, randomly, on Twitter, they sent me a message and said, ’We liked your style, and could we have a conversation?’ ” Byrd recalls. “I said sure. So we set up a time. They said, ’We really like how you style our clothes and we want to know if you’d come to New York City to do a fashion shoot?’ ” While recalling the story, Byrd begins to laugh. “And I’m like, ’Yeah, I think I can make that work.’”
Byrd and four other women were taken to a studio, where they were photographed and filmed wearing J.C. Penney clothing.
The experience took her back to her younger days, when she would dress up while visiting her uncle in Virginia, and he would ask her mother, “Does she always dress like this?”
Byrd has a 17-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son and a supportive boyfriend who wondered if he could fly to New York, too. No, she said. This was a girls’ weekend with the four others who came from Boston; Washington, D.C.; Detroit; and Chicago.
“This was for everyday women,” Byrd said of the advertising campaign. “They’re taking inspiration from their customers. If you are marketing toward an everyday woman such as myself, you want to see other women you can identify with. The majority of the women are not 6-foot tall and 110 pounds.”
Byrd is 5 feet 7 inches tall and wears a size 10 dress. “If I wear pants, I wear a 10 or 12,” she says. “I got that pear shape going on.”
She’s not sure if there are photo shoots in her future. She’ll still write the blog and still shop at J.C. Penney, even though her wardrobe did grow when she was allowed to keep the clothes she modeled.
“What makes it so surreal is I have been a Penney’s fan for years,” Byrd says. “When I was young and when I was a teenager, I used to shop their dress department all the time. So for them to come to me and say they like my style and that I inspire them, that was so humbling. I mean, do you have the right person here?”
Yeah. It’s Mary from Indiana.
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Information from: The Journal Gazette, https://www.journalgazette.net
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