A VISION to redefine what luxury means to those who never believed they deserved it

When I was young, I was tall and slim, and one of my earnest desires was to model. I never in a million years believed it was something I could do, because I was raised in the foster care system and I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t called names like ugly and monkey face, by foster families and my own family. During my childhood, and well into my teen and adult years, I have no member of anyone ever saying anything positive that may have led me to believe I could fulfill my dream. The distorted image I had of myself was that nobody with an ugly, monkey face deserved nice things. And for many years thereafter, long after the pangs of childhood memories were no longer, the damages caused to the child were visited on the woman. I was a grown woman, with a budding career as a traveling respiratory therapist, and nobody had to deny me of anything, because I made sure to do it to myself. 

 I don’t remember the exact day, or if there was a pivotal event that occurred, but in 2019 I suddenly had an earnest desire to open a clothing boutique. I was a middle-aged woman on a mission, and all I knew was I needed to get it done. I ordered the most fashionable and trending items at the time, and I enjoyed doing it. But the little girl in me still resided, because as much fun as I had playing dress-up with the pieces I’d ordered, there was nothing in me that led me to believe I was ‘pretty enough’ to model in front of a camera, I would hire the pretty people for that. 

As 2019 ended, COVID-19 began, and those ‘pretty’ people that enraptured me as I pictured them adorned in fashions I selected, all let me down. And my dream of launching a high-end boutique, gone, and the child in me laughed, as if it were possible for anyone ‘like me’ to do anything so extravagant as to have a dream. Just like that, I gave up and threw myself into work, traveling to COVID hot spots and doing what I could to make a difference. 

By the time 2022 rolled around and things were getting back to some sense of normalcy, that same spark I had 3 years earlier, hit me again but this time it was different. Something manifested in me after all the months of watching lives being swiftly taken away by an invisible predator. I knew it was time to stop being afraid. Time to let the frightened child, who only heard and felt the castigation of those responsible for loving her, go. 

This was my year of growth and self-love, and my determination was fueled by my child’s dream. I did everything differently. I dressed up in the latest fashions and told myself, I AM BEAUTIFUL, AND I AM ENOUGH, those words were exactly what I needed to rid myself of the fear of being in front of the camera. And I conquered it head-on.

  • The feedback from my social media posts were inspiring. I began tagging the designers of all the fashions I modeled hoping I would get noticed, and that’s when things started to transform. Conquering one fear, opened doors to other ideas. As I dealt with mental health issues all my life, the idea to raise money for mental health awareness seemed a no-brainer.

    I launched a top-of-the-line, luxury t-shirt campaign, and as the campaign progressed, Coco Smith Luxe was born. A company with a VISION to redefine what luxury means to those who never believed they deserved it, and to ultimately become the next household name in luxury fashion.

  • As a child, the word luxury seemed foreign, but Coco Smith Luxe believes luxury is whatever you wear that allows you to overcome the hurtful narratives that led you to believe luxury was out of reach.

    At Coco Smith Luxe our MISSION is to help redesign your image of luxury by showing you how uncomplicated and stylish it is to couple our chic crop tops and graphic t-shirts with a simple pair of jeans and a designer handbag. Style and luxury is not hard, and here at Coco Smith Luxe we’re going to show you how, and why.

  • At Coco Smith Luxe we VALUE the importance of mental health, which includes reducing our carbon footprint and doing our part to protect the Earth, the only place we can call home. We believe in using materials that do not require the depletion of our natural resources. Our handbags are constructed using cactus leather. The cactus plant is strong and survives with little water, reducing the need for animal leather.

    The cactus is harvested and never killed off in the process because it re-grows. We only work with manufacturers whose values align with our own. Our premium t-shirts are sourced from a factory that conserves materials, decreases waste and saves thousands of gallons of water with its production process.