Woman wraps up personality in beautiful bows

| A rainbow has entered and dispersed its spectrum of colors into Jessica Hoffman’s world.

Here she sits cutting, sewing, and gluing red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet hues into hair bows pleasing to princesses and occasionally puppies.

Passers-by stop and study her work. Adjectives and interjections erupt from their mouths like champagne bubbles rocket from bottles.

“Pretty!” “Wow!” “Gee Whiz!” “Perfect!”

Yes, Hoffman’s got this gift for making hair bows all stitched up in a space she’s made for herself at Hudson’s Flea Market.

While the world swims in a sea of political correctness, racial tensions, prolonged wars, frightening famines and aloof masses, Hoffman creates a private universe where fabric is fashioned to compliment personalities and wardrobes.

“I have many customers who buy their clothes to accessorize their bows,” said Hoffman, 33. “It is the finishing touch to their outfits. For little girls, hair bows say they love being a little girl – that feminine is in.”

Hoffman, a former teacher who is also a freshly minted realtor with Surfside Beach Realty, was inspired to get into the hair bow business, P (Princess) & P (Pup) Designs, after her 6-year-old daughter, Paige, was born. Her baby arrived on Earth beautiful and bald, weighing 6 pounds and 6 ounces.

“She didn’t have any hair until she was 18-months-old,” Hoffman said.

Then, the expected started happening. People thought Paige was a Paul, and it has happened to the most discerning of us. It is a universal faux pas when we mistake baby girls for baby boys and vice versa. For newborn girls, the lack of hair often confuses us. For newborn boys, the excessive amount of hair often confuses us. We simply don’t know who is who. Well, Hoffman wasn’t having it. Right away, she and her mother-in-law, Valeria Hoffman, bought bows online because retail stores didn’t have the dainty, stylish hair bows they deemed ideal for wee little ladies.

Before the next stranger could mistake Paige for a boy again, she had a collection of 50 hair bows, courtesy of her mom and grandma. Next, she starting making the hair bows herself. Friends freaked. They. Loved. Them. Their friends felt the same. Boom! Hoffman her hair fare was ideal to share.

Using $36 as start-up money, her hair bow business hemmed its way into the hearts human and decorated the heads of animals, too. All of her Hoffman’s hair bows are stackable, interchangeable, and washable. The custom-made fabric bows cost $5 to $12.

Flower, Paige’s Yorkshire terrier, wears them, although sometimes reluctantly, as if it knows cuteness is not tied to a hair bow, although it is certainly cuter with one on.

Instagram star pigs, Priscilla and Poppleton, a sister and brother duo in Florida with more than 540,000 followers, also sports Hoffman’s hair bows in certain photos.

The bulk of her customers, however, are human.

Plenty of her patrons find her on the festival circuit, while others visit her flea market space, which was built and decorated to look like a castle.

This is where Bonnie Guill caught sight of Hoffman’s talent.

“These are beautiful and unique,” said Guill, 67, while closely inspecting a few of about 1,400 hair bows. “She is very talented. She sews and crochets.’’

Hoffman, while carrying on conversation with customers, created 25 denim bows with ridged ribbon accents in 60 minutes the day Guill visited. If Hoffman didn’t tell it, some folks would find it difficult to believe she isn’t a trained seamstress. What she is, however, is a dedicated practitioner of practice.

“I practice, and practice, and practice, and practice until I figure out what styles of hair bows I want, and what I like best,” said Hoffman, as Flower, bowless, stood at her feet. The adorable doggie managed to rid itself of the tiny pink hair bow Hoffman placed on its silky strands of hair. “Now, I have bow addicts who call me The Bow Designer and The Bow Lady.”

Hoffman smiles at that thought. After all, she has graduated from making hair bows for her formerly baldhead baby girl to making bows for countless kids with heads just as bare or as long as the flowing hair Paige now sports.

Even boys and men heighten their style in Hoffman’s hands since she makes bow ties, too. Her 8-year-old son, Dylan, is always looking dapper wearing his mama’s designs with crisp, starched shirts.

Basically, Hoffman doesn’t discriminate. If you want style or your current one is weak, she will find a way to make you chic.

That’s why her fans adore her. And this group includes cheerleaders, soccer moms, church ladies, pet owners, hip grandmas, dashing dudes, and every little girl who knows she truly is a princess.

Hair bows and bow ties let the wearers express their personal taste. There are no rules, unless you happen to be one of her children.

“In my house, we have a strict policy,” Hoffman said. “And that policy is: No bow. No go.”

This story was originally published October 18, 2015 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Woman wraps up personality in beautiful bows."