That Baton Rouge Style

One of the most exciting and interesting aspects of
entrepreneurship is that there are so many niches, fields and
areas of specialty that didn’t exist as recently as just 20 years
ago but today provide opportunities for the creative and
ambitious to build entire lifestyles and careers. What’s also
unique and special about these emerging fields is the way they
blend entrepreneurship and business know-how with a higher
mission – to help others or to help the environment or just to do
things with an eye on making the world a better place.


Chenese Lewis is an entertainer, entrepreneur and multimedia
success story, who is one of the original plus size influencers
in the country. Chenese is a Baton Rouge native, who moved to
L.A. to launch her career in the early 2000s and, not long
thereafter, won a plus-sized beauty pageant. She went on to
become a plus size model, and an advocate for women’s positive
body image and self-esteem.


Chenese was an influencer before most people even knew what that
was. She launched the first podcast focused on plus sized women
in 2008, before most people knew what podcasts were. In 2014,
Chenese returned to Baton Rouge, where she is based today and
continues to grow her company, hosting virtual events and making
headlines in national publications. 


Paula LaFargue is founder and Designer of The Maybe Collection, a
Baton Rouge small business that ethically makes comfortable,
functional, beautiful women’s garments produced with minimal
environmental impact for an accessible cost.


Paula started the company in 2016, after spending 10 years
designing clothes for nursing moms, children and utility workers
– not all at the same time. She strives hard to have the smallest
possible environmental impact in every aspect of The Maybe
Collection – from the materials she sources, to internal
operations, to packaging.


Paula is a mother of two young children, and a native of Baton
Rouge, who attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and cut
her teeth in the fashion industry in New York then Chicago before
returning home in 2009. 


Chenese Lewis and Paula LaFargue are not only assets to the Baton
rouge business community, they're also touching the lives of so
many women around the country in important ways.


You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website.
And here's some more lunch table conversation about Baton Rouge
influencers and retailers.


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