About B. Viz

Rebecca Vizard, owner of B.VIZ Design

Rebecca Watson Vizard grew up in the small delta town of St. Joseph, Louisiana. She graduated from Newcomb College of Tulane University in Art and Communications. After marrying Michael Vizard, they apprehensively returned to Rebecca’s tiny hometown to help with the family business. Soon they built a house on Lake Bruin, an oxbow lake or remnant of the Mississippi River, and later added a studio to the house, where Vizard now works designing pillows and other imaginative creations.

“Business by the seat of your pants,” Vizard recalls, as her first entrepreneurial endeavor involved painting socks and baby clothes. Splatter painting socks was easy, fast, and very popular at the time. Stores such as JC Penny, Talbots, and Mervyns sold her painted socks. UPS trucks full of socks were constantly in and out of the driveway. Boxes were stacked throughout the house, and socks were spread all over the yard. Vizard and a team of locals helped paint socks. At one point, she employed 26 people and generated 200 dozen socks a day. The venture was a success and a studio was added to the house.

With the means to finally decorate her home, Vizard realized how much she enjoyed the process. Friends had often asked for her interior design help, but now friends of friends began hiring her. She worked on many projects in Houston, New Orleans and New York. Belinda, the housekeeper, helped take care of her two children and keep the house in order while Vizard was constantly on the road.

Throughout her interior design work, the time spent looking for pillows and the cost of new fabrics and labor to make ordinary pillows was appalling. When hired to furnish a wonderful project in New York,
Vizard was determined to find a great source for pillows. After several trips to the big apple, spending more time looking for pillows then anything else, Vizard finally approached the 26th Street flea market. She found a tattered priest robe with a beautifully patinaed, gold, metallic ribbon that was the same shade of gold as the filigree on a curtain panel hanging in a different booth. Her mind immediately constructed a minimalist design for an extraordinary pillow. Hence the beginning of a new line of understated, elegant, one-of-a kind pillows.

At first, only clients were privy to these creations. Vizard showed the pillows to New Orleans design diva, Gerrie Bremermann, and they became a staple in all of her projects. Bremermann accumulated a large inventory in her Magazine Street shop. With a stroke of luck, Vizard sold to twenty-two of the Neiman Marcus stores and rapidly needed a larger inventory. Soon she could be found schlepping duffle bags full of antique textiles back and forth from flea markets overseas. Steadily, her designs began appearing in many national magazines, such as House Beautiful, Veranda, Elle Décor, Traditional Home, Southern Accents and Southern Living.

The invention of the floppy disk camera helped facilitate sales instead of literal “trunk” shows of pillows. Vizard’s life on the road decreased as her grasp of technology increased, and in 2002 she launched her website www.bviz.com.

In 2005, Vizard’s interior design projects stalled in the wake of Katrina. With the devastation of New Orleans, interior design was not a priority. At this point, Vizard had the time to focus on the pillows and targeting other interior designers across the country. Vizard reluctantly forfeited the interior design aspect of her business as her pillow venture flourished.

Besides enjoying the contemplative and creative work designing pillows, the true gems of her story are the people she has met along the way.

Belinda Prudhomme has been working with the Vizard family since 1987. Her job drastically changed from cleaning the house and helping with the kids, to invoicing and shipping, webmaster, and seamstress. She is solely in charge of producing Fortuny flowers and ornaments from antique textile remnants. Without Belinda, none of this would have happened. Vizard explains, “We have an amazing synergy. Like good karma that keeps square rooting.”

Monica, a Katrina-evacuee, has made St. Joseph her permanent home.
According to Vizard, “Not only is she a master at hand sewing, she enjoys living here and volunteering for many projects for the needy.”
Vizard also employs other seamstresses from around the area and appreciates their talent.

Marina, a feisty, ninety year-old Italian who lives in Paris, has been a blessing to the pillow endeavor. Vizard met Marina in a flea market while searching for textiles. Marina happened to be an antique textile expert and knew exactly what Vizard was looking for. They kept in touch regularly and still do today. Marina helps Vizard by searching the flea markets and bidding at auctions, and has taught Vizard a great deal about textiles. Sometimes Vizard stays with Marina while on buying trips in Paris. Also, Marina and her family have been to Lake Bruin to visit the Vizard’s.

Vizard continues to experience the rare opportunity of keeping one foot in a high-end cosmopolitan world and one foot in the rural northeast Louisiana delta. Her entrepreneurial spirit has led to other projects, benefiting those in the community.

She was a force behind starting a farmer’s market on summer weekends and encouraging locals to participate. Also, in this heavily impoverished area of high unemployment, Vizard hires local teenagers to help with her “Bottle Cap Projects” in a motivational and educational way. Vizard explains, “We have a lot of poverty in our small town and a lot of trash. If we can teach the people in poverty to make things out of the trash, we can change some lives and keep our landfills from over flowing. It’s a win/win and brings a smile to everyone who sees a finished product.” Vizard calls her latest creation the “Beer-de-lier” (a chandelier made out of bottle caps). Throughout her entrepreneurial journey, Vizard now enjoys more than ever being home and using creativity to help her community.