Vanessa Bolano ABC26 News

July 18, 2010
UPTOWN—
You may know "Fleurty Girl." She's an Uptown business owner who prints her shirt square in the middle of some of the biggest issues in New Orleans. ABC26 News Reporter Vanessa Bolano visited the new Fleurty store.

Meet Lauren Thom, a native New Orleanian who has found the key to success. "It's like a three business model for like people, planet and profit, but in our case it's people, then New Orleans, then profit."

News & weather text alerts -- free on your cell phone from WGNO!

She started "Fleurty Girl" as an online business featuring New Orleans inspired T-shirts. Six months later she opened a shop on Oak street, and then came a second store on Magazine Street. "Just opened yesterday (Saturday) six months later. I know, I keep having all these six months mile stones."

All this in the middle of a recession, but it's the good she's done with her success that she says is keeping business alive.

"I think the biggest thing that we've done is to do good, give back. We have a couple of shirts that we donate a portion of the proceeds," says Thom.

One of those shirts is known as the "Rescue Me" tee. 100% of what Lauren through the "Rescue Me" tops makes goes to Audubon's sea turtle rescue program. So far she's raised nearly $20,000. The tops are one of the hottest items at "Fleurty Girl" and since proceeds go towards saving turtles from the oil spill there's no oil used to print them, instead it's soy based ink.

Lauren says she wants to give back to New Orleans because the culture here comes free, and it's the culture that she's built her brand on. "Which is, you know, T-shirts that say making groceries, or T-shirts that say break tag. We don't pay a royalty to anybody because it's in the vernacular here in the city."

As for the next six months Lauren promises to "Keep doing good in every way that we can."