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jewelry designed to be the art you wear

26

Women of Influence

Luxiere’s first joint WOI profile looks at the friendship and empirein-progress of dazzling duo Kami Huddleston and Ashley Murphy. Together, the business partners are the driving forces behind Wed Society, bringing their energy and expertise to revolutionizing the wedding industry.

STORY BY GRETCHEN HAMEL

32 It's About Time

The ultra-luxe wristwatch is having a moment in the cultural spotlight. For jeweler extraordinaire Valerie Naifeh, that just so happens to be perfect timing.

STORY BY CHRISTINE EDDINGTON

Magic in the Moments

Michael Hulett’s thriving Tulsa gallery inspires, educates and introduces visitors to photographic artists old and new—plus it gives him an excuse to keep collecting.

STORY BY MEGAN

SHEPHERD

60 Beyond the Villa

Veterinary student, dedicated rodeo rider, international model, “Love Island” sensation … for Oklahoman Taylor Williams, the future is wide open.

STORY BY KATE FRANK

66 Exchange Rate

A historic screening room on Film Row is one of the last remaining vestiges of OKC’s once-thriving Hollywood ties—but the venue’s story isn’t over yet.

STORY BY ALEXANDRA BOHANNON

74

Welcome to The Black Land

A new photography exhibition at Oklahoma Contemporary showcases Jakian Parks’ efforts to chronicle and honor Oklahoma’s thriving Black cowboy culture.

STORY BY ANDREA SCHULTZ

57 FROM THE PUBLISHER

It has the makings of an only-in-Oklahoma story: A wonderfully handsome, talented young man grows up to become a reality television star (“Love Island”), international top model (Louis Vuitton), veterinary student and competitive rodeo rider. Perhaps, as I think it through, Oklahoma simply plays a supporting role, and it’s really an “only Taylor Williams” story. Regardless, it’s magical, uplifting and just the type of story we need in 2025.

Black rodeo culture in Oklahoma, a generations-long tradition replete with its own instantly recognizable sartorial perspective, is also being celebrated in a new exhibit of photography by the brilliantly talented Jakian Parks at Oklahoma Contemporary. Entitled The Black Land: Rituals and Rejoicing in African American Rodeo Culture, this is a must-not-miss moment, and we are pleased to bring you its story.

Another only-in-Oklahoma tale? The empire built by two women, Kami Huddleston and Ashley Murphy, our first-ever dual Woman of Influence subjects. Their company, Wed Society, was born when they were in their 20s, over cocktails, like so many industry-changing empires before it. This is a story of friendship, family, fierce competitiveness and fearlessness, and if it doesn’t inspire you, I’ll genuinely be surprised.

Who spends more than half a million dollars on a KTM X-BO GTXR supercar, a street-legal version of a crazy-fast race car, only to haul it to Tulsa less than two weeks later for a night of drag racing? Writer Michael Kinney knows who. He shares the story of Brian Knight’s love of fast cars (this one tops out at 174 mph!), an obsession that began as he was growing up in the 1970s and ’80s.

The erudite distinctions among patisseries, viennoiseries and boulangeries are now something you can explore at your leisure, thanks to the proliferation of profiteroles, croissants, elaborate trompe l’oeil pastries and more popping up at the many exquisite new bakeries dotting our state. Our expert guide, Greg Horton, takes us on a

turnpike-spanning tour. Our only regret is that his story isn’t scratchand-sniff.

Have you noticed that watches, of the exceptional variety, are having quite the moment these past several months? Longtime Oklahoma innovator and artist Valerie Naifeh certainly has. Just as popular culture fell in love with timepieces again, Naifeh and her team have launched watch galleries at her stores in Oklahoma City and Sun Valley, Idaho. She carries only two lines, which between them produce only about 1,200 watches each year. You’ll love learning about Bovet, an ancient line, and newcomer HYT.

Why do stories like these seem so prevalent in Oklahoma? Perhaps it’s our collective can-do spirit, playing out against our beautiful sherbet-colored sunsets.

Whatever the alchemy that makes Oklahoma sparkle, I am here for it.

Until next time,

STACY D. JOHNSON Publisher, Owner

Each issue of Luxiere represents the combined efforts of an accomplished team of creative Oklahomans. We are pleased to share their work with you, and grateful for the time and talent each has contributed to bringing this publication into being. OUR CONTRIBUTORS

MICHAEL

GREG HORTON WRITER

STEVE GILL COPY EDITOR

ANDREA SCHULTZ SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST / WRITER

MEGAN SHEPHERD WRITER

COOPER ANDERSON WEBSITE

CHRISTINE

STACY

D.

JOHNSON Owner/Publisher/Editor in Chief

DESIGN nvsble.studio

ON THE COVER

Longtime friends Ashley Murphy and Kami Huddleston are the driving forces making Oklahoma-based Wed Society a huge, and growing, success.

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Luxiere Oklahoma is published bimonthly, direct-mailed to a curated readership and distributed at select retail locations free of charge for individual use. To request copies, please contact the publisher. For more information, visit www.luxiere.co.

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Email: stacy@ luxiere.co Phone: 405.808.1332

Advertising claims and the views expressed in this magazine by writers do not necessarily represent those of Luxiere Magazine. No responsibility is assumed for unsolicited materials. Originals of manuscripts, photographs, artwork or other materials should not be sent to Luxiere Magazine unless specifically requested to do so in writing. Luxiere Magazine is not responsible for the return of any manuscripts, photographs, artwork or other materials submitted. Luxiere Magazine shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. Luxiere Magazine shall have no liability for any infringement of copyright or other arising out of publication thereof. Luxiere Magazine reserves the right to edit submissions before publication. Reproduction in any form without prior written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited. All requests for permission and reprints must be made in writing to Luxiere Magazine, c/o Legal, 2123 N Classen Blvd Oklahoma City, OK 73106.

Certified Ball-Knower

Marc Spears’ path to the Basketball Hall of Fame came off the court

STORY & IMAGES

BY MICHAEL KINNEY

When Marc Spears made the long trek to Oklahoma for the first time, he had no idea what was in store for him. Growing up in California and attending college at San Jose State University, he was a West Coast kid through and through.

However, Spears’ calling to write about basketball was stronger than any trepidations he may have had when, while interning at the Dallas Morning News in 1995, a co-worker gave him some sage advice.

“Three-quarters of the way through the internship, the only job offer I had was at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a part-timer covering high schools,” Spears says. “We had a writer at the Dallas Morning News covering college sports. All I remember is the dude’s nickname was like ‘Rabbit.’ I was talking to him one day, telling him I was looking for a job. And he’s like, ‘The Tulsa World has a job covering Arkansas’ football and basketball teams. You should apply for that.’”

Spears took Rabbit’s advice and applied for the position, and landed the gig. That ended up being his first job in a long list of professional accomplishments that now sees him as a Senior Writer at ESPN and Andscape.

After becoming just the fourth recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award in print for outstanding contributions to basketball, Spears was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023 despite having never played professional basketball. He also received an honorary doctorate from Langston University, co-wrote the book The Spencer Haywood Rule, created a talk show on Hulu called “The Conversations Project” and even became a wine ambassador for Kendall Jackson Wines.

At 53 years old, Spears is living a life he could never have imagined when his dad gave him a subscription to Sports Illustrated in 1984.

“I’m very blessed to be where I am, and hopefully I can be, you know, working for ESPN and Andscape as long as I can,” Spears says. “They give me a lot of leeway to just do me, to write about African Americans in basketball, culture in basketball, the races in basketball, women in basketball. I’ve written a lot about women in the sport. You dream of other things, but I’m good. I’m very proud and happy to be where I am.”

None of this life was guaranteed three decades ago when Spears decided to transplant to Tulsa to work for the World. He described it as a decisive moment in his career.

“I think it was the best thing because I wasn’t ready,” Spears says. “I tell young journalists it’s like everybody wants to go to the major leagues in the beginning. Go to a place where you’re nurtured. And if you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world.”

Spears, who was back in Oklahoma 30 years later covering the 2025 NBA Finals, recalled just how difficult the transition was for him.

“It was basically covering Arkansas football and basketball, commuting from Tulsa to Fayetteville when I needed to. It [the pay] was $19,000 before taxes,” Spears says. “I was struggling financially during those two years to make ends meet. But I figured it out. If I could go back, I probably would’ve gotten food stamps, because it was that bad.”

But Spears didn’t quit and rush back home to California where he would be more comfortable. He had bigger goals, and he saw the opportunities that being in Tulsa at that time allotted him.

“I was thinking long term, not short term,” he says. “And I was right out of college. I’m covering Arkansas football and basketball. I’m covering Nolan Richardson. They just went to two Final Fours. The football team was actually pretty good; they made it to the SEC Championship in ’95. For me to get a job covering Arkansas, covering the SEC right out of college was incredible. The money, even though it was a struggle, was a beautiful sacrifice.”

It was also a learning ground that the young, confident, sometimes brash Spears had to endure. It wasn’t until he got to Tulsa that he learned what it took to be a sportswriter at a major publication … including a lot of driving between his home base and the site of his beat in Fayetteville.

“I remember it was important for me to gas my car up, make sure my car was all right, because I was—to be completely honest, I heard there were some KKK people in between those two places,” Spears said. “So, I would have to drive home late at night sometimes, and I would just be very cognizant of making sure my car was all right. I was alert coming home after a lot of the basketball games. But even then, it was a great experience covering the SEC.”

While worrying about whether he was going to get pulled over by the KKK was an issue, Spears’ biggest fear was that he would get fired. His first few months at the World showed him he had a lot to learn.

“I was getting reprimanded for my game stories not being the best,” Spears says. “They never really taught me how to write game stories in college, and [I was] reprimanded for my work not being cleaner. I think at that time, maybe I had an elevated level of interviewing skills, people skills, but my writing needed a lot of work. To be quite honest, I was struggling.”

However, instead of jettisoning Spears, one person saw some talent and decided to help.

“There was an editor (Bob Colvin), a white man who had one arm, and for some reason, he wanted to help me,” Spears said. “He ended up having me come in once a week, and we would look at my raw copy. And he would talk me through how to write this better. He taught me how to write stories better, work on deadlines better. And after about three or four months, he’s like, ‘You’re good.’”

The relationship with Colvin taught Spears more than just how to be a better writer: “It kind of really reinforced in me that even though I was in the South and I’m like the only Black male there [at the Tulsa newspaper], in a town where they had the race riots, where a lot of times I felt like people were looking at me funny, when I went to work, this man put his love into me,” Spears says. “This white man put his love into me. And I don’t know if I would have ended up having the success I had if it wasn’t for him.”

Even after Spears left Tulsa in 1997 and went on to work in cities such as Los Angeles, Louisville, Denver and Boston, he never forgot what Colvin did for him. So much so that on one of the biggest days of his career, he made sure the former editor had a prime seat.

“When I got my honorary doctorate from Langston, during my speech, I gave him a shout out,” Spears recalls. “He came, and I had him sit in the VIP section. It was funny because it kind of flipped; he was like the only white man there. He was with his lady, and they were probably the only two white people at the whole thing. But he was so proud of me.”

ABOVE:

OPPOSITE:

Spears made the most of the opportunity and platform Tulsa provided him in those early years. Whether he is in South Africa writing about the importance of Basketball Africa League or in Oklahoma detailing the rise and fall of former NBA star Micheal Ray Richardson, he still relishes the life he has created.

“I still don’t get tired of it, man. I’m still infatuated with the game and the history of the game, and so honored to be a part of it,” Spears says. “Being in the Hall of Fame and to represent ESPN covering basketball has truly changed my life. It’s allowed me to see the world. I’ve been to like 20 different countries. I’m super blessed to see the history of the game and know I’m part of that history.”

Which means Tulsa is, as well. •

Home on the Range for the Holidays

Here, the holidays aren’t just a season — they’re a feeling. Indulge in the warmth of fireside s’mores, festive lights and crisp winter nights, where joy and tradition come together in unforgettable ways. Whether you’re sipping seasonal cocktails by the fire, teeing off on championship courses, or relaxing at the spa with treatments inspired by the spirit of the season, every moment is designed to feel magical. Savor comforting holiday cuisine, enjoy live music under twinkling skies, and explore curated events that celebrate the wonder of the holidays. This is your invitation to escape the ordinary and embrace the most joyful time of year. Discover your holiday haven at Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa, where holiday traditions come to life.

Women of Influence Kami Huddleston & Ashley Murphy

STORY BY GRETCHEN HAMEL PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASHLEY SUNDERLAND

Ready for something new? How about two Women of Influence at once? These particular women, Kami Huddleston and Ashley Murphy, have been business partners for almost two decades. That’s a long time. Twice as long as the Beatles were together. Three times longer than the Spice Girls. Longer than many marriages. Longer than some species of trees live.

Together, they’ve built Wed Society, a company supporting the wedding industry through beautiful, locally focused print publications, social media, websites and in-person events. Between them, Murphy and Huddleston have five children, two husbands and a franchise system that now stretches across 24 markets nationwide.

The wedding business, as it turns out, is a very good business. In 2023, there were more than two million weddings in the United States, and by 2024, the average cost of a wedding surpassed $31,000. The industry encompasses some 350,000 businesses, from florists, photographers and planners to drone shows and champagne carts. Wed Society shines a light on all of them—connecting couples with the most trusted vendors in their local markets; telling the stories behind the most beautiful and innovative weddings around; and recognizing the artistry and dedication that go into celebrating one of life’s biggest moments.

Both women are competitive, driven and unafraid of risk. Murphy, who oversees operations, strategy and growth, is the steady architect behind the systems that make the business scalable. Huddleston, the creative force, leads the brand’s design and marketing, shaping the look and feel of everything from the magazines to the social campaigns.

Their partnership works because their strengths are opposite but complementary. “We’ve always said that we do our best work when we’re operating in our own lanes,” Huddleston says. Murphy agrees, laughing, “I think we’ve proven that opposites really do attract—at least in business.”

Together, they’ve taken a local idea and built a national brand that continues to scale. To help guide that growth, they brought on franchising expert David Lewis, who previously led franchising for Express Employment Professionals. Wed Society’s current valuation has surpassed $10 million, and in 2024, the company finished its Series A funding round, followed quickly by a Series B that is almost complete. Their long-term goal? To grow to 100+ franchise markets across the United States … and eventually to expand internationally.

It all started nearly 20 years ago over cocktails in Oklahoma City’s Deep Deuce neighborhood. Two young women—both newly married, both full of ideas—were commiserating about how hard it had been to plan their weddings.

“It was the 2000s,” Huddleston recalls. “Ashley was drinking a Flirtini, and I had a margarita. We had the same conversation every bride has had at some point—that it was way too difficult to find good, trustworthy vendors.”

There was no single place to browse inspiration or see who the best local wedding professionals were. Back then, the wedding industry was fragmented; word-of-mouth and phone books were still doing most of the heavy lifting. “We just thought surely there could be better,” Murphy says.

Both women attended Oklahoma City University, where they’d met years earlier and planned their own weddings just weeks apart—both marrying at the OCU chapel and standing in each other’s weddings.

“Looking back, our lives have always run parallel,” Huddleston says. “We were friends, brides, new moms, business partners—all at the same time.”

After that fateful cocktail conversation, they decided to act. Each invested $4,000, which was a bold move for two women in their 20s with no publishing background and no guarantee of success. They built a small website, printed business cards and mapped out what would become the first issue of Brides of Oklahoma.

“I had always wanted to design a magazine,” Huddleston says. With her design background and eye for aesthetics, she tackled the creative side while Murphy handled logistics and operations. Both were deeply involved in sales. “We were just making it up as we went,” she laughs. “But we knew there was a gap in the market, and we were determined to fill it.”

Their first issue, released in 2007, was a whopping 272 pages—a staggering size for a debut publication. It featured real weddings and local vendor profiles, all focused on connecting couples directly to professionals in their area. The response was immediate and enthusiastic.

Within a year, they expanded into Dallas-Fort Worth, followed by Austin and then Houston—each new market launched with the same care and local focus that made the original a success.

Along the way, they embraced every new technology that could amplify their reach. “We started blogging from day one, before blogging was really a thing,” Huddleston says. They built early social channels, hosted launch events and created industry gatherings to connect wedding professionals in person. “Those relationships were everything,” Murphy adds. “Our community was—and still is—the heart of what makes Wed Society work.”

As their markets multiplied, so did their team … and their families. They learned to balance new babies with deadlines, travel and photoshoots, often working late into the night. “We were building our families and our business at the same time,” Murphy says. “It was a constant juggle, but we were passionate about what we were creating.”

“The rebrand was both practical and strategic. We knew we were scaling beyond state lines, and we wanted a name that felt timeless, inclusive and big enough for where we were headed.”

KAMI HUDDLESTON

By 2022, they were ready for a major evolution. What had been regional titles— Brides of Oklahoma, Brides of North Texas, Brides of Houston, Brides of Austin —were unified under a single, national identity: Wed Society.

“The rebrand was both practical and strategic,” Huddleston explains. “We knew we were scaling beyond state lines, and we wanted a name that felt timeless, inclusive and big enough for where we were headed.”

That decision proved pivotal. The streamlined brand set the stage for franchising, and when they opened the opportunity, the response was overwhelming: More than 10,000 people applied.

Wed Society now supports its carefully selected franchise owners with an all-inclusive model. “They don’t need publishing experience,” Murphy says. “They bring their local expertise and relationships, and our internal team handles the rest—the print design, tech stack, production, distribution and national marketing.”

It’s a model that empowers entrepreneurs to own their markets while maintaining the high creative and editorial standards that define the brand. “Our mission has always been the same,” Huddleston says. “To connect couples with the best local vendors and to elevate the businesses that make wedding dreams come true.”

Today, Huddleston and Murphy continue to dream big, proving that ambition and authenticity can go hand in hand. “Franchising has allowed us to take everything we’ve learned over the last 20 years and share it with others who are equally passionate about this industry,” Murphy says.

And through it all, their partnership remains the constant: two women, one shared vision and a friendship that has outlasted trends, technology shifts and even the occasional chaos of life.

“We’ve always believed that when you build something with heart, it lasts,” Huddleston says. “This company started as a way to solve a problem for engaged couples in Oklahoma. Now, it’s become a movement that’s helping elevate the entire wedding community.”

If history is any indicator, they’re just getting started. And if we were betting people, we’d put our money on Huddleston, Murphy and Wed Society to keep rewriting the rules of the wedding industry—one beautiful celebration at a time. •

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It’s About Time. Or is it?

Statement pieces to wear close at hand

BY CHRISTINE EDDINGTON

In case you haven’t noticed, watches are having a pretty big cultural moment. Not just any watches, though. Statement pieces. Expensive, rare, IYKYK watches. Once you dial in, you can’t not notice—they’re everywhere: movies, television shows and celebrity wrists. Watches have become such a personal bellwether that costume designers for shows like “The White Lotus” spend weeks—even months—identifying and choosing very specific, and sometimes obscure, watches for characters to wear, to help tell the viewer precisely who they are.

A couple of great examples: In the recent season, Parker Posey’s character, the wealthy Southern matriarch Victoria Ratliff, wears the classic Rolex Day-Date President, as does her husband Tim (played by Jason Isaacs). The matching watches, hers the more expensive version ($65K) and his a bit less so (around $50K), symbolize the couple’s wealth, exalted self-perception and ruthless unity.

In another series, “Your Friends and Neighbors,” watches are used to amplify the flagrant desperation of fired hedge fund manager Andrew “Coop” Cooper, played by Jon Hamm, who solves his cash flow problem by stealing new-money, look-at-me, crazy expensive watches from his wealthy neighbors who happen to collect them. First up is a Patek Philippe Nautilus ($169K on the resale market). Next, he swipes another neighbor’s $225K Richard Mille Felipe Massa. What’s interesting, though, is that as he’s bagging his quarry, he tells the audience in great detail what makes these timepieces so spectacular, from the latter’s “signature rose-gold and titanium skeleton and flyback function,” to the former’s “white-gold blue sunburst dial, water resistance up to 30 meters and 2.3-millimeter thickness.”

Valerie Naifeh—jewelry designer and founder of Naifeh Fine Jewelry, with locations in Oklahoma City and Sun Valley, Idaho — is aware of all of this. And she’s recently expanded both locations to include watch boutiques, with pieces for men and women. But it feels more like a coincidence that she’s brought timepieces into her boutiques during the height of watch-mania. Naifeh is a savvy businesswoman, yes, but first and foremost she’s an artist who holds every item in her shops to a high standard. She’s selective, and unyielding in her commitment to beauty, uniqueness and quality. This is why it’s only now that she’s delving into watches.

“Over the 27-year history of the company, men have come in and said, ‘Well, do you carry watches? What watches do you have?’ And there are other companies in Oklahoma City who have done an extraordinarily fine job of providing lots of different watch brands to customers, and that’s just not been my background,” she says. Watches weren’t her milieu, and choosing which lines to carry felt uncomfortable. “It wasn’t until last year that we hired an extraordinary young man. His name is Brian Pates, and Brian is our manager for our Sun Valley store. Brian is about 53 years old, and his entire professional career has been in luxury retail, everything from Valentino to Eton and then managing Betteridge Jewelers in Vail, Colorado.”

Naifeh has expanded both locations to include exquisite watch boutiques, and in so doing has become wonderfully well educated in the world of watches and fine timepieces.

“Timepieces, obviously are utilitarian because they serve an important purpose—telling time—but they also say a lot about the individual who wears them,” Naifeh says. “Most of our customers are leaders; they’re not followers. Most of our patrons are individuals who like to make statements about who they are.”

As a designer and artist herself, Naifeh’s appreciation for and love of every tiny detail of the watches she offers is exciting to her. She’s enamored, and as she speaks, it’s impossible not to become a little smitten, also, with these tiny machines that tell us the time and telegraph who we think we are and how we want to be perceived.

But as we said, she’s a savvy businesswoman, and that side of Naifeh was in on the decision, too. Frankly, she’s trying to woo the fellas. “We’ve really never had anything ‘for men,’ and most men, traditionally, especially in the South and the Midwest, don’t wear a lot of jewelry. But men do love to wear a timepiece. Women will wear diamond studs or a beautiful colored gemstone on the right hand, or an important necklace. Men don’t really have a way to show off their individuality and also wealth, for lack of a better word, in the jewelry category, other than timepieces.”

Funny fact: Some of the younger people working in Naifeh’s shops have had to learn how to tell time. “In our Sun Valley store, we have three young ladies who are under the age of 25, and when we introduced these two watch brands, none of them knew how to tell time on a watch. They’ve grown up with digital time on a phone, and so we have had to teach them how to read [chronometric] time.”

It was Pates, Naifeh’s well-pedigreed Sun Valley manager, who helped her navigate the world of luxury timepieces. “He has a wealth of knowledge about a lot of extraordinary brands that are all limited production,” she says. The two started a conversation, which turned into an evaluation of potential brands to bring into the store.

The winners are Bovet and HYT, two remarkable companies. “Bovet is Swiss,” Naifeh says, and while many watchmakers describe their wares as Swiss, there’s a loophole. Watches assembled in Switzerland from parts produced elsewhere call themselves Swiss-made. Naifeh said luxury brands like Rolex and Patek Philippe fall into this category. “Bovet is more than Swiss-made. It’s 95% all made in-house in Neuchatel, Switzerland. And so we actually can say that Bovet is Swiss handcrafted,” she says. Bovet produces a mere 1,000 timepieces a year; Rolex produces around a million. There are precisely three of Bovet’s newest watch, the Récital 30, in the world. You’ll find one-third of them at Naifeh Fine Jewelry.

HYT is a horse of another color entirely. “HYT stands for hydro technical,” Naifeh says. “This is a very, very new company. It’s only been in existence since 2012, although the technology for the watch was being developed prior to HYT being formed as a company. They only make about 150 watches a year.” Reader, are you ready for this? HYT is the first watch to tell time with liquid. There is no hour hand. You tell the hour by the advance of the liquid as it moves in the watch, through a little tube.

Naifeh, who by now is quite the horological expert, explained that with HYT it’s all about the cool factor, although it’s a precisely engineered feat of near-magic. “There are two parts to the movement, whereas most watches are strictly just an automatic or mechanical movement, or you can force movement. The HYT has a mechanical movement with the main screen, but then at the base, it has a liquid module, and the liquid module is two-part. There are two baffles, which regulate the flow of the liquid, and they also regulate the expansion or contraction based on temperature,” she says. HYT, like Bovet, is 95% Swiss hand-crafted. The only thing made outside of Switzerland is the strap.

The two inaugural watchmakers Naifeh has teamed up with could not be more visually or philosophically different, but they also have something very important in common. “I’m a small, independent company, and I want to partner with like-minded people,” Naifeh says. “I like partnering with smaller companies that are working at a very, very high level and innovating beyond what anyone else is seeing. We push ourselves in our design lab in Oklahoma City to make the finest jewelry possible. We’re pushing ourselves every day to get better and better at everything we do. And that’s what I look for.” •

THE LUXIERE LIST

Who

Are You Calling Horological?

Naifeh Fine Jewelry’s two locations offer timepieces for men and women. You’ll find rarities from Bovet and HYT ranging in price from $31K to $466K. The perfect stocking stuffer.

Oklahoma is home to jewelers offering the finest watch brands in the world, ranging from the accessible to the wildly aspirational. Oklahoma City’s BC Clark offers Rolex, Tudor, Breitling, OMEGA, Grand Seiko, Longines, TAG Heuer, NOMOS Glahütte, Shinola and Montblanc.

Tulsa’s Diamond Cellar offers Rolex, Patek Philippe, Chanel, Tudar, Grand Seiko, Baume & Mercier, Gucci, Hermes, Frederique Constant and more.

Sotheby’s is a phenomenal resource for watches — via private sales and auctions. If you’re quick, you can pick up a limitededition pink gold Cartier Crash watch at auction right about now. It’s estimated to close at 3,200,000 HKD, or $384K USD.

Timepiece fans love the ’gram. Follow @dailywatch, which showcases the latest in luxury watches from top brands, including Rolex, Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe; @watchanish, the brainchild of Anish Bhatt, a global luxury influencer who takes a more editorial approach; and @hodinkee, which goes deeper, offering a blend of hands-on reviews, technical data, the latest industry news and in-depth analysis of the world’s leading watch brands.

OKC Thunder player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander presented Rolex watches to his teammates after winning the 2024-25 NBA MVP award, fulfilling a promise he made last season. Models given included the Rolex Submariner Date, Datejust 36 (Jubilee and Oyster bracelet models), Sky-Dweller and SeaDweller.

Come Around Again

Tulsa Vintage Company shares the joy of fashion treasure hunts

STORY BY MEGAN SHEPHERD PHOTOGRAPHY BY VIET H. NGUYEN

Vintage is having a moment, and in Tulsa, that moment lives off 15th Street. At Tulsa Vintage Company, timeless pieces and hands-on craft prove that what’s old can always feel new again — clothes, neighborhoods, even entire city blocks. TVC isn’t just reviving classic denim; it’s helping revive an overlooked corner of the city.

Much of TVC’s ethos is about savoring the American spirit of craftsmanship. Picture classic denim, vintage workwear, varsity sweaters and the kind of hats your dad would have worn in the ’70s: broken-in, softened by wear and carrying their own story. Like many vintage shops, Tulsa Vintage Company celebrates preservation, and a stylish sensibility that never fades.

Now two years in, co-owners Julee DeLong and Mike Clark have established TVC as a purveyor of vintage treasure, and a curated boutique in a city with relatively few style-driven retail options.

“I’ve been thrifting since I was a kid—I’ve always loved hunting for treasure,” DeLong recalls. “Back then I’d dig around in the woods, or go ‘junkin’ at antique stores. I wore my parents’ clothes from the ’70s, and as soon as I could drive, I was stopping by the thrift store every day. That’s when the obsession really started.

“When I lived in Jackson Hole, there was an auction up in Montana — clothes from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, mostly. For whatever reason, I decided to bid on the whole lot, and I won. Suddenly, I had all these clothes and nowhere to put them.”

But the right spot would come in time, and by chance. After moving back to Tulsa to search for a storefront, hosting vintage pop-ups around town in the meantime, DeLong and Clark had nearly given up on their brick-and-mortar dream. With Clark working full-time and DeLong running a fine gardening business, the vision of finally opening a shop felt far away … until one day DeLong spotted an empty storefront off 15th Street.

“I’d bought her a work truck,” Clark remembers, “and one day she drove it around the corner and saw this spot. She called me to come see it, and hours later we’d signed the lease.”

The buildout took eight solid months of long nights and no-break weekends to fabricate the space to their standards. “We did everything ourselves,” Clark recalls. “I built the dressing rooms and fixtures, stripped the wood paneling to expose the concrete walls—it was a labor of love.”

Today, the space is unrecognizable compared to the empty box it started as, vibrant with custom design elements and hung wall-towall with classic clothes. TVC welcomes a steady flow of visitors each week, all hungry to scour the racks for new additions. For Tulsa’s most style-obsessed vintage hunters, visiting the store is a weekly ritual. The racks refresh daily, with hundreds of new pieces stocked on average each week. But patrons are equally likely to drop in for a vibe check; it’s not uncommon for visitors to spend an hour or so shooting the breeze with TVC’s shop-managers-turned-welcome wagon, Calee Rigdon and Cara Cox, who are happy to make recommendations on store inventory and local haunts in equal measure.

On any given Sunday, the store feels more like a creative salon than a shop. Step inside and you’ll find artists, touring musicians and local tastemakers lounging on the couch, parading looks for feedback or debriefing the previous night’s Mercury Lounge romp over shop mimosas. In this way, Tulsa Vintage Company is more than a store; it’s a hub for style, scheming and indulging in the lost art of visiting

Like most vintage stores, TVC plays the hits: ’70s statement pieces, classic tees and sneakers and enough partywear to outfit an entire throwback gala guest list. But around these parts, the real draw is denim.

“Denim is our number one seller,” says DeLong, adding that that’s by design. “People know they can come here for true vintage denim, but also for ’90s classics and western wear. We try to offer something for everyone—different body types and ages. My favorite trend is t-shirts, forever and ever, but also flannel and hats. For me, that’ll never die. I grew up wearing my dad’s flannels, and he always wore Levi’s 501s, cowboy boots and a tall trucker hat—so that’s in my DNA.”

“People are absolutely amazed whenever they come in searching for something unique, only to have Julee style them in the perfect piece. For a lot of folks, she ends up giving them one of the greatest shopping experiences they’ve ever had.”

MIKE CLARK

Beyond denim, TVC stocks ’90s prepwear and statement jackets, buckles and bolos, as well as one-of-a-kind pieces whose mileage proves that quality craftsmanship will always outlast any fast-fashion trend. Hands-on restoration makes TVC especially unique; every piece is washed, mended, patched, steamed and occasionally reimagined using salvaged vintage materials. The result is classic fashion that somehow always manages to feel brand-new.

Vintage has always had appeal for shoppers looking for quality craftsmanship, but it’s found new resonance today among Gen Z and style-obsessed Tulsans searching for sustainable, expressive ways to dress. Against the backdrop of fast fashion’s waste and sameness, TVC offers timelessness, personality and enduring quality. Here, thrifting isn’t just about affordable shopping, but the art of collection and preservation—an obsession for statement-makers as essential as expression itself.

“People are absolutely amazed whenever they come in searching for something unqiue, only to have Julee style them in the perfect piece,” Clark insists. “For a lot of folks, she ends up giving them one of the greatest shopping experiences they’ve ever had.”

Just as TVC makes old garments feel fresh again, its corner of 15th Street has found new life too. After years of underutilization, a bevy of recently established vintage and thrift shops has helped the east end of Cherry Street reimagine itself as “Vintage Row.”

“The vintage scene in Tulsa is exploding,” DeLong says. “When we came into the area, we were flying solo. We wanted to build a community, and once we got in and more shops started opening, we started talking to our neighbors about organizing as ‘Vintage Row.’ We were constantly having to direct people for where to go next, and just felt like we needed something like a roadmap. And now we have one! It’s been really great, and kind of feels like family.”

With TVC as an anchor, Vintage Row is now 12 shops deep, with Polly Hester, A-List, Vintage and Reclaimed, Harrington Rose, Love Me Two Times, The Racks and many others populating the map.

Together, Clark, DeLong and their shop-keeping neighbors have organized a corridor where Tulsa’s past and future collide, proving that with care and vision, even the oldest treasures can always feel new again. •

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Magic in the Moments

Michael Hulett’s gallery inspires and shapes photographic awe

BY MEGAN SHEPHERD

Michael Hulett never imagined himself back in Tulsa, working as an art dealer and running his own gallery—but as so many great stories do, his career in art started with a love affair.

“In my 20s, I dated a girl that was super into photography,” he says. “I picked up a camera and fell in love with photography, and out of love with her, and that’s where my photo career began.”

As they say, the rest is history. Twenty years later, Hulett is a full-fledged art dealer, and a fanatical collector. After serving as the director of the world-renowned Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica, curating exhibitions across the U.S. as well as in London and Paris, Hulett and his wife returned home to Tulsa to be closer to family. Opening a gallery wasn’t yet in focus, but Hulett’s massive personal photo collection was growing larger by the month, and in desperate need of new space.

“Honestly, I was racking my brain about what I was going to do here in Tulsa,” Hulett recalls. “I thought I might work at Philbrook, or find a job at a gallery. One day, I was boohooing about this to my wife, Hannah. She said, ‘You have 25,000 photos in boxes. Why don’t you open a gallery and start selling those ’til you run out?’”

Two years later, Hulett still hasn’t run out of photos, and has successfully carved out a market of Tulsans who appreciate them as much as he does. Today he’s the owner and curatorial eye behind The Hulett Collection, a small, impressively chic photo gallery on the west edge of Cherry Street featuring works by legends of the medium. At any given moment, the walls are filled with rare photography from artists like Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt and Hulett’s own artistic icon, Louis Stettner. (As it happens, Hulett’s is the only gallery in the Western Hemisphere showing Stettner’s work, making the collection’s presence in Tulsa all the more impressive).

With the exception of Ansel Adams’ landscapes, Hulett’s gallery primarily features figurative, humanist works depicting everyday subjects caught in poignant, beautifully mundane moments.

“It’s a lot of anonymous women, fleeting moments in time,” Hulett says. “Nowadays it’s usually kids. I have three kids of my own now, and I’m experiencing in real time … the awe the world holds for them. I immediately connect to that when I see it in a photo.”

That awe is embodied perhaps no better than in Hulett’s favorite piece from his latest show: a silver gelatin print of a child staring up the meteoric mayhem of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, captured by Stettner circa 1974. It hangs tucked away in the back of the gallery — an enduring reminder of the same awe and nostalgia that drew Hulett to photography in the first place.

In many ways, Hulett’s curation integrates old and new, bringing iconic moments throughout history into current context. In addition to late greats like Stettner and Adams, Hulett has widened his curatorial aperture to include works from contemporary artists, too.

“Part of what I’m trying to figure out is how to make classic photography appeal to American audiences,” he says, “especially Americans in their 30s and 40s, who typically prioritize experiences over tangible assets.”

It’s not just an aesthetic choice, but a strategic one. Art collecting has primarily been accessible to buyers with disposable income and discerning taste — both of which typically come with age. But growing appreciation for the artform requires growing the customer base, too, and contemporary artists offer an entry point for young, nascent collectors.

“For me it’s, ‘How do I turn owning a piece of history or fine art into an experience itself, so that it’s not just an investment you’re making, but something you interact with on a daily basis?’ I’m still figuring that out as time goes on,” he says.

It invites the question: What exactly makes the old feel new again?

Of course, there’s the old adage of seeing something in a new light, which the gallery does beautifully. But the pieces in the collection are all united by an important throughline: their potential for autobiographical viewing.

ABOVE:

“Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade,” New York, 1974

By Louis Stettner

BELOW:

“Man Of The 20th Century,” New York, 1953

By Louis Stettner

Whether depicting a streetscape, the shadowed symmetry of skyscrapers or the taut line of a mother and child tugging each other in different directions, the photos in the collection have a way of pulling the viewer in and placing them in the center of their tension. As time and context cast new shadows on the photographer’s original intent, even frozen moments can feel like present reality. In this way, these photos aren’t just relics of history, but living mirrors, where snapshots of time stir new understanding in the viewer’s own experience even decades later.

The Hulett Collection feels right at home in a city experiencing its own cultural renewal, and this too is by design. Hulett wanted the gallery to be additive, offering Tulsans and visitors access to historically significant works not typically found in this corner of the world.

“In my head, I asked, ‘What can I bring to Tulsa that won’t be seen here otherwise?’ I knew there were a lot of galleries supporting local artists and photographers, but I didn’t see anyone bringing national or global artists to Tulsa at the scale I’m trying to do here. And that’s not to say an artist from Finland is inherently better than an artist from Tulsa. I just don’t think that exposure would’ve happened otherwise.”

The Hulett gallery will center Tulsa’s own history and talent soon enough with an upcoming show featuring Tulsa-born photographer and social justice documenter, Don Thompson.

“He’s the real deal,” Hulett insists of Thompson, whose work has been featured in iconic venues like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. “But his street photography, documentary and portraits have never really been shown properly.” Hulett hopes to do Thompson’s work justice with an online and physical exhibition of Thompson’s work capturing the Greenwood District in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s—images that feel classic and captivating even 50 years later.

Ahead of that, Hulett is hosting an exhibition with contemporary artist Jane Hilton, a UK-born photographer documenting the evolving cultural landscape of the American West, on view now through Nov. 15. The evocative “Cowboys and Drag Queens” exhibition reinterprets old and new icons of the West through portraits of cowboys in full color, and Reno drag queens in black and white. Hulett described the show as a way to blend two seemingly disparate sides of a cultural spectrum, bringing both into new conversation with one another, expanding our understanding of what the colorful region can mean.

As is always the case, the images on view will be available for purchase—but we shouldn’t be surprised if a few find a permanent home in Hulett’s personal collection. After all, he’s a collector first, and a dealer second.

“I sell prints so I can buy prints. That’s the cycle,” he explains, characterizing dealing as something of a hack he’s found to feed his own constant craving for new pieces.

By Kit Young

By Don Thompson

“A lot of dealers just represent artists—the work comes in, the show ends and the work leaves. But I worked for a gallerist who also obsessively collected, and that’s how I caught the bug. I’m not in this just to sell art,” he insists. “I’m in it because I’m passionate about collecting it, too.

“And so the cycle continues.” •

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The Falling Guy

Actor and stand-up comic Josh Fadem on breaking into Hollywood

BY ALEXANDRA BOHANNON

Tulsa-born actor and stand-up comedian Josh Fadem knew he wasn’t cast on David Lynch’s final season of “Twin Peaks” “on accident.”

“Krista Husar was familiar with—she paid attention to comedy, and she came to some shows of mine, and they had called me in for a few other things,” recalls Fadem about the “Twin Peaks” season three casting team.

The 45-year-old character actor’s credits include beloved TV shows from the past two decades: “Twin Peaks,” “Better Call Saul,” “American Dad” and “30 Rock,” to name a few. Fadem likely wouldn’t be where he is in his career without having moved to L.A. for film school and taken classes at The Groundlings and The Upright Citizens Brigade L.A.

After enrolling in and dropping out of film school, he began performing on stage not just for improv shows, but also for stand-up. While Fadem’s path from improv to stand-up isn’t a unique one, he did originally swear off stand-up after bombing his first time on stage.

“And I said, ‘Never again,’” recalls Fadem. “Half a year later, someone was like, ‘Do you want to host?’ And I said, ‘Sure.’ And I kind of came up with a silly character to hide behind who thought that his jokes were doing great. I could specifically come up with really dumb jokes and then act like they were all killing. The reaction to the dumb jokes got the laughs. And I was like, ‘That was a blast.’”

FALLING WITH STYLE

Fadem’s act has definitely evolved since those early days, as he has gotten more experimental over the years. For example, he will sometimes start a set with pratfalling for two minutes before even addressing the audience. He stumbles, falls, trips over a stool, the microphone cable, a rug, his feet—apparently unable to put the mic in his hand to say a single joke.

While this may sound like a glossophobic panic dream for some, this is the sweet spot where Fadem thrives, pushing the envelope on the absurd until it verges more on performance art than traditional stand-up. What’s tinged with irony throughout this is that despite Fadem playing characters or even exaggerated versions of himself that are more anxious, neurotic or just plain odd, the “real” Josh Fadem does still get a bit of nerves before getting up to the mic.

“Every time I have shows coming up, I just always get anxiety,” says Fadem about touring. “Especially since in Oklahoma, it is harder to go up regularly to perform and workshop.”

Fadem, who splits his time between Oklahoma and L.A. after the pandemic, throws himself into other ways to work on his craft when in the Sooner State. His podcast “Here Come the Details” launches him into something better, something weirder. He may not be able to walk down the street and hit a mic, but what he has cultivated instead is another outlet for his creativity.

“I think any kind of art-making process is looking at what you’ve got available to you, and then looking at what’s not available,” says Fadem. “And how can you do it anyway.”

The show’s description reads as follows (the grammatical errors likely intentional): “Josh Fadem hosts the very first Screen Show with a variety of guest, subject and location.” If it wasn’t apparent from the description, the yielded tone is a blend of “comedian interviews other comedians on YouTube” and “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!”—a staple of satirical, cringe and anti-comedy sketch humor.

“Some of the pros about doing that podcast are that I can get as strange with it as I want in Oklahoma. I can seemingly get my buddies together and we can film an episode on a sidewalk, you know what I mean?” says Fadem. “And in L.A., if I message with friends, like, ‘We should make a thing!’ It’s like … where could we do it? My backyard, maybe?”

Clearly, Fadem’s time spent in Oklahoma has not been fruitless. He recently guest-starred on Oklahoma director Sterlin Harjo’s newest show “The Lowdown,” which premiered in September on Hulu, but it was Harjo’s first show, “Reservation Dogs,” that eventually opened a new door for Fadem: being the dramatic lead for a feature film.

“I think any kind of art-making process is looking at what you’ve got available to you, and then looking at what’s not available. And how can you do it anyway.”

JOSH FADEM

In an episode of “Reservation Dogs,” Fadem guest stars alongside Mickey Reece, a director, screenwriter and actor who rogerebert.com describes as “Oklahoma’s favorite indie film son.” While shooting their scenes, Fadem and Reece discovered they had an easy chemistry and became friends after the shoot was over. So, when Reece was looking to cast the lead for his next film, he tapped Fadem to star in it.

“I think I mentioned that I hadn’t done an actual lead role, and then he wrote this script, and he was like, ‘What do you think?’ And then we managed to make it,” says Fadem. The psychological thriller, Every Heavy Thing , premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal earlier this year and continues to tour the festival circuit, receiving positive reviews.

‘DEFINITELY

THE RIGHT CASTING’

But lead or no, Fadem makes it a point to throw himself (often literally) into a performance. Whether he’s “ace employee” Phil Bisby in “Twin Peaks,” film snobbish and disinterested Marshall (aka Saul Goodman’s camera guy) in “Better Call Saul” or Liz Lemon’s suit-toobig-wearing, bumbling newbie agent Simon Barrons in “30 Rock,” Fadem is ready to harness his comedy chops to bring empathy and depth to even the most over-the-top characters.

Fadem also admitted that having a “respectable resume” like his definitely gives him a boost in the eyes of casting directors. That resume, packed with great character work, helped earn him a spot in Lynch’s universe, which he still thinks of fondly.

“I don’t want to use the expression of like, ‘I can quit now,’ you know,” says Fadem on working with Lynch, who is one of his creative heroes. “But it was the thing where it felt like it just lent a confidence to me.”

Case in point: Fadem explained a day on set with Lynch where he was doing some physical stretches and doing high kicks in between his scenes. Lynch, who was watching Fadem, commented to a neighbor: “Definitely the right casting.”

And that’s not the last time that Fadem will hear that. •

To check out Josh Fadem’s upcoming tour dates, follow him on Instagram at @joshfadem. You can also find his podcast “Here Come the Details” on YouTube or herecomethedetails.com.

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Beyond the Villa

Life after ‘Love Island’ for Oklahoman Taylor Williams

STORY BY KATE FRANK

Taylor Williams is no stranger to the spotlight. Millions of viewers were introduced to the Oklahoma native on the 2025 season of “Love Island,” where he quickly became a fan favorite, leaving the villa just before the season finale. But while it may have introduced him to the world, “Love Island” is only a portion of Williams’ story. Behind the glitz and glam of reality TV is a man who grew up in Oklahoma; developed a love for rodeo on his grandfather’s ranch; and now juggles life as a veterinary student, competitive rodeo rider and international model. His journey is anything but typical—it’s a story that reflects the resilience and ambition of someone proud to call Oklahoma home.

SOONER STATE ROOTS

Born in Tulsa, Williams lived there for five years before moving to Owasso and eventually Oklahoma City. He grew up as the middle child of three brothers, all of whom shared a love for sports. “We played everything: basketball, baseball, football,” he says. “It was always competitive in our house.”

But for Williams, nothing compared to riding. “I was probably riding horses before I could walk,” he says. His father had been a bull rider before hanging up his spurs to raise a family, and his grandfather’s ranch remained Williams’ second home. “Every summer, I’d stay with my grandparents and ride horses all day. Growing up around animals inspired me to become a vet,” he explains.

When his family moved to Oklahoma City, Williams spent six years without horses—which was far too long. Today, his family owns 13 horses, four of them personally belonging to Williams. Riding isn’t just a hobby; it’s a lifestyle that connects him to his roots, even as life takes him to places far beyond Oklahoma.

THE MODELING BREAK THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

After graduating from Edmond Santa Fe High School, Williams attended Oklahoma State University, majoring in animal science on a pre-vet track. But after completing his undergraduate degree, he decided to take a year off before applying to veterinary school—a decision that would lead to one of the most unexpected opportunities in his career.

During that gap year, Williams’ modeling career took off, but not in the traditional sense. He wasn’t signed to an agency, didn’t have professional headshots and never even considered modeling. “My mom always encouraged me to model, but I wanted to ride horses and play basketball. It never crossed my mind,” he says.

That changed when Pharrell Williams, creative director for Louis Vuitton menswear, began scouting authentic cowboys for the brand’s Fall/Winter 2024 runway show in Paris. A talent agency working with Pharrell discovered Taylor through Instagram. “They had been following my social media for months,” Williams recalls, scouting him for the upcoming show.

A call from the Louis Vuitton team, a trip to Paris and a debut on one of the biggest fashion stages in the world was a whirlwind for the Oklahoma native. After his runway appearance, Williams was hand-selected for an editorial shoot for Wonderland Magazine, a fully dedicated Louis Vuitton story.

“It was so exciting; that was my first time modeling … I had no experience,” Williams says. “When Louis Vuitton contacted me, it was a no-brainer.”

Since then, Williams has worked with brands like John B. Stetson Company, Schaefer Outfitters, Wrangler and Levi’s, when he starred in the Fort Worth rodeo campaign for the brand. Despite his success, Williams remains unsigned to an agency and plans to continue modeling as opportunities arise.

“When Louis Vuitton contacted me, it was a no-brainer.”

TAYLOR WILLIAMS

COWBOY TAKES ‘LOVE ISLAND’

While modeling sparked a new passion, Williams still had dreams of becoming a veterinarian. He returned to OSU for his first year of vet school when another unexpected opportunity came knocking: the USA version of “Love Island.”

“I applied during my first year of vet school,” he says. “When I got the call, I thought, ‘Why not?’ It was a chance to meet someone in a cool place.”

Williams brought his Oklahoma charm and values to Fiji where filming took place this past summer. “Everyone always says people from Oklahoma are so nice,” he says. “I wasn’t gonna change who I am just because I’m on TV.”

That authenticity resonated with fans and contestants alike. While the show introduced him to a national audience, Williams views it as just one chapter in his story. Since filming wrapped, he’s stayed close with many of his fellow Islanders, even bringing some of them to Oklahoma to experience his world firsthand. Several Islanders plan to visit the state and watch him compete in upcoming rodeo events, a true glimpse into the life that makes him who he is.

Representing Oklahoma is something Williams takes great pride in, whether on reality TV or walking the runway in Paris Fashion Week. But he’s quick to laugh about the misconceptions people have about his home state. “People think we’re all riding in wagons with tumbleweeds crossing the road,” he jokes. “Even in Paris, they were in awe that I was a real cowboy. On ‘Love Island,’ everyone kept asking if I actually rode horses every day.”

“Eventually, I want my own land for horses and [to] have my own ranch.”

TAYLOR WILLIAMS

THE OKLAHOMA COWBOY LEGACY

Beyond modeling and TV, Williams remains deeply involved in rodeo life. He’s a member of the Oklahoma Cowboys, a nonprofit organization founded in 2022 that celebrates Black cowboy culture and community. Riding in grand entries while holding the organization’s flag, Williams has been a part of the organization since day one.

His specialty in the rodeo world is the Pony Express, a four-man relay and one of the biggest events in Oklahoma’s Black rodeos. “It’s huge here,” he says. Rodeo season runs from February through October, and even during competition, Williams is always prioritizing his studies as he enters his final year at OSU. “I’m always studying,” he says. “On the plane, in the car, even on Quizlet while waiting to ride. Any downtime I have, I’m studying.”

BEYOND THE VILLA

After returning from New York for a “Love Island” reunion, Williams is back to his routine: vet school, rodeos and modeling gigs. Looking ahead, he plans to graduate, open his own clinic and ensure the rodeo tradition continues for future generations.

He also hopes Clarke, his girlfriend he met on “Love Island,” will join him in Oklahoma one day. “I want to stay near the city, Tulsa or OKC, close enough to travel to the country and ride,” he says. “Eventually, I want my own land for horses and [to] have my own ranch.”

Williams’ advice for young Oklahomans with big dreams is clear: “Use social media,” he says. “It’s how you gain exposure. Make connections everywhere you can. Even if you’re in a rural part of Oklahoma, you can create content anywhere.” He even encourages those from rural Oklahoma to dream big: “Go downtown for city views, or find a field for sunset photos … use your resources everywhere you can.” As someone from Oklahoma with big dreams, he knows no limits and urges younger generations to do the same.

From Oklahoma ranches to Paris runways and reality TV screens, Taylor Williams is proving that where you come from doesn’t limit where you can go. And while “Love Island” gave him a platform, his heart and his boots will always be firmly planted in Oklahoma soil. •

Exchange Rate

The

Oklahoma Film Exchange’s fundraising mission to keep film on Film Row

STORY BY ALEXANDRA BOHANNON PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN JAYNE

This August, the Oklahoma Film Exchange (OFX) had one mission: raise $100,000 in 30 days to preserve the last historic film exchange screening room in the country, located at 701 W. Sheridan Ave. in Oklahoma City.

Throughout the month of August, the OFX team gave it their all in a programming blitz, with a movie or event (sometimes two) each day in the Film Row screening room. But the fundraiser stalled, and the nearly $15,000 they raised on the popular crowdfunding platform IndieGoGo was returned to donors.

However, that wasn’t the end for OFX’s effort to preserve this historic screening room. In fact, that’s just where the story starts.

SETTING THE STAGE

While Oklahoma City had played host to live entertainment since statehood, it wasn’t long before motion pictures started moving into the Sooner State. Shortly after the advent of widespread distribution and access to motion pictures, businessmen across the country began opening nickelodeons, theaters that screened films and actuality film (early unstructured documentaries) for a 5-cent admission price.

Enter the film exchange.

“The first couple of decades of film history, they built these film exchanges across the country,” says Dalton Stuart, lead operations partner for OFX. “They were basically warehouses and holding centers for all the reels coming in as the film showed up from New York, Chicago and L.A. Theater owners, critics, industry types would come to the screening rooms in film exchanges to watch the stuff that was on offer, and decide what they wanted to show in their movie theaters.”

These exchanges were primarily located in cities near railheads, facilitating easy transportation across the country—making Oklahoma City a prime locale. Oklahoma City was one of 37 film exchange networks across the country, and by 1928, there were 30 film exchanges in OKC, according to historian Bradley Wynn in his book Oklahoma City: Film Row (Images of America), which explores the history of the Film Row district.

Due to the explosive and flammable nature of film stock of this era, many film exchanges throughout Oklahoma City were quickly reduced to cinders — largely because of a lack of standardized fire codes and fireproof vaults for the nitrate-based stock, according to Wynn. From the mid-1920s to the 1930s, consolidated film exchanges using the new fire codes sprang up on what was eventually called Film Row; an area situated on the outskirts of Oklahoma City’s original downtown to protect the city core from the risk of explosive conflagration.

Eventually, the studios became the power players of the film exchange game, consolidating the shipping, rental and distribution of their films to the theaters that would screen them. The Paramount Building at 701 W. Sheridan, part of the “Film Exchange Historic District” on the National Register of Historic Places, is the site of one of the aforementioned studio-run exchanges, and hosted one of four screening theaters.

As time passed, the district, which had been a hub of movieindustry commerce for almost every major studio in the game, became derelict. Most longtime Oklahoma City residents recall the boardedup storefronts, broken glass and empty lots that followed failed downtown urban renewal efforts in the 1960s and ’70s.

The Film Row screening room itself went from an industry-exclusive theater managed by Paramount to a general audience theater screening everything from blockbusters to adult films until the 1980s. But eventually, the projector light grew dim, and this space also fell vacant.

It took a passionate group of Oklahomans to revitalize Film Row in the mid-2000s, laying the foundation for what it is today. And now, in 2025, the Oklahoma Film Exchange—the name a loving homage to the heyday of the industry—is on a mission to prevent this last screening room from vanishing from existence.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

While the OFX team heard rumblings in early 2025 about the fate of the Film Row screening room, they didn’t have a firm grasp on what was going to happen to it until this past June. At the time, nonprofit arthouse theater Rodeo Cinema had been leasing and operating the screening room, but there didn’t seem to be much momentum in the space.

“I wouldn’t say they shut down the Film Row location, but they definitely weren’t scheduling any events there or anything like that until deadCENTER,” says River Lunsford, OFX communications and marketing team member, who explained that it was Sean Peel, a member of the OFX team, who first learned of the news of the screening room’s imminent closure at the end of summer.

By this point, the OFX had become a loose collective of film programmers and cinephiles with the goal of someday securing a permanent screening location, similar to what the microcinema Hyperreal Film Club had achieved in Austin, Texas. However, after learning that the Film Row screening room would be no more by the end of August 2025, the group had to take action.

“That was kind of a rallying cry for us through all of this,” says Stuart. “It took [Hyperreal Film Club] five years, but they have a building now. And they started with nothing. We’re starting with a building. We only have it for a month, but we’ve got it.”

The ragtag group of cinephiles, comedians and artists knew it was a tall order, but to keep the Film Row screening room alive as an operational theater, they collectively believed an all-or-nothing fundraising blitz was worth it. They estimated $100k would cover taking over the lease from Rodeo, as well as all operational expenses for a year.

Kicking off their IndieGoGo at the end of July, the team started putting in work. Every night for a month, there was some kind of screening, event or community gathering. There was no admission fee, with donations accepted at the door, and the opportunity to buy merch and snacks. While the IndieGoGo chugged along in the background, all the donations at the door went straight to the OFX operations account.

“We thought that we were going to have maybe $3K lying around when we were done,” says Stuart. “That would be enough to license a movie once or twice a month, and figure out some pop-up screenings at Bookish and Mycelium Gallery.”

Three weeks into the fundraiser, though, OFX had only reached around 15% of its $100k IndieGoGo goal. Due to the all-or-nothing structure of the fundraiser, those donations would be refunded to their original donors at the month’s close, so the team couldn’t count on any of that money.

But, despite this, they had great news.

“We were shocked at how much money we had raised just on screenings. It all started to set in that like, ‘Oh, no—this is, this is happening. We could, we can do this,’” recalls Stuart.

After crunching the numbers, the OFX team realized they had raised enough money from donations at the door alone to cover a month-to-month lease until the end of the year.

“I just remain blown away,” says Stuart. “And if I dwell on it for too long, I get pretty emotional about it.”

“I don’t know if I would say we have a responsibility to care for buildings, necessarily, so much as our history.”

RIVER LUNSFORD

KEEPING FILM ON FILM ROW

Now that the OFX has preserved the screening room to live another day, they’re looking at more sustainable efforts to keep the lights on. Their newly formed worker-owned co-op has received the green light from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition on a partnership with the organization to assist with fundraising; more details to come. Besides operational costs, the team is looking to raise an additional $15,000 to upgrade projection equipment, as well as to secure funds to continue leasing some equipment from Rodeo Cinema.

“We have some good potential fundraising partners coming in for us, hopefully, here soon,” says Keithan Smith, OFX programmer and operations team member. “We’re all feeling pretty good that between all of us, we can come up with some programming that the OKC community will find interesting and entertaining.”

Indeed, the team programmed 21 events in September. Highlights included some classics like Charade (1963) and His Girl Friday (1940), some nostalgic flicks like Ernest Goes to Camp (1987) and The Mask (1994) and a special screening of the first two episodes of Sterlin Harjo’s new FX show “The Lowdown,” starring Ethan Hawke and Keith David, which was shot in Tulsa. October is jam-packed with spookier picks, some horror classics and some off-the-beaten-path options, with a full calendar of events available online.

Now that the team is in the space and making it their own, they’re going to give it their all to prevent it from going the way of historic Oklahoma City theaters like the Orpheum and the original Criterion.

“Oklahoma has a tendency to always look forward and never back, and never really interacts with the rich history it does have. And the film exchanges and Film Row is one of the few things we have left in the city for any historical period of time,” says Lunsford.

“I don’t know if I would say we have a responsibility to care for buildings, necessarily, so much as our history. But I do think as film lovers and as people who want to create spaces for the arts, we do have a responsibility to utilize that space and to keep its legacy going. Because if we don’t, who will?” •

Keep up with October screenings and events at the Oklahoma Film Exchange by following the group on Instagram @oklahomafilmexchange or visiting oklahomafilmexchange.com.

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Welcome to The Black Land

Rituals and rejoicing in African American rodeo culture

STORY BY ANDREA SCHULTZ PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAKIAN PARKS

Jakian Parks has established his reputation as a photographer and documentarian by showcasing Black excellence and the equestrian lifestyle in Oklahoma through photography. The powerful response he garnered over recent years led to the creation of his non-profit organization Oklahoma Cowboys in 2022, and forthcoming solo exhibition at Oklahoma Contemporary opening on Nov. 6.

His introduction to Black rodeo culture came from his late aunt, Shay Nolan, who was embedded in the Black cowboy community in Oklahoma where Parks attended rodeos with her growing up. “It’s so crazy,” he says, “because when I first went back out there, I couldn’t believe it was still going on. It was unbelievable, because I hadn’t seen it since my aunt passed away and it was still thriving at the same rate that it was when I stopped going years ago. It just wasn’t spotlighted.”

Parks’ gift is in his ability to capture the everyday lives of Black cattlemen, cowboys and community members by framing their lives in a way that embodies the raw essence of the resilience, dedication and pride that this community carries. Through this curation of photographs, he honors the ecosystem that exists between the land and its people—celebrating the continual exchange of care, resources and values that are passed on through generations.

Oklahoma Contemporary reveals the intention of this show by stating that, “at the heart of this exhibition is the land, a complex and enduring source of both struggle and identity within the African American experience. For Black Americans, farmland evokes a lineage of forced labor, sharecropping and ongoing challenges around ownership and sovereignty. Yet The Black Land also affirms the expertise and divination that has grown from this proximity. Through its gestures and imagery, the exhibition suggests that ancestral spirits hold the key to a deeply rooted knowledge of plantation systems, gardening traditions and livestock ranching.”

“To me, The Black Land uplifts the Black community in a way that feels innately spiritual. The facial expressions are really pure and honest, and real people are being captured in a way that is uncontrolled. That adds so much truth and so much beauty to the overall story line,” says guest curator Chloé Flowers.

“ The Black Land is an appreciation and tribute to Black culture. It preserves the historical efforts put in by our ancestors and those before us. For example, a cowboy who existed back in the 1940s now has a grandson who is using the same principles that his grandfather used to tend to the land. It’s a celebration of generational wealth in multiple ways.”

Originally the organizers had selected a different title for the exhibition, but after reflecting on the conversations with subjects in the photographs, everything kept leading back to the natural land where these communities live. “One woman we interviewed described her upbringing and told us that they grew their own food, and had chickens and horses. They had a little grocery store on the corner to buy milk and things like that,” says Parks. “I’m sitting there creating this visual in my head thinking, like, this is the Black land. She lived in a Black town, everything that they did there. They didn’t really go out anywhere. So I asked her, ‘Where did you work?’ and she said, ‘I didn’t have a job, I picked cotton.’ They had food, they went to school. Everything happened on these grounds.” Their life’s work was to care for the land, because if they cared for the land, the land cared for them.

“They are a primary source,” says Flowers. “They are very generous with their time and their resources, welcoming us to walk around their farmland and ride their horses.”

“When I first started photographing cowboys, they were shocked to see that anybody was coming out to take photos of it,” says Parks. “They never had that experience before. And I remember that in the first year, they were like, ‘You wanna take a photo of me?’ Then once I kept coming around, they became more and more excited to be on camera and came up to me like, ‘Get me, get me!’”

ABOVE: “The Sanctified West” The Black Land by Jakian Parks

RIGHT: “Dad’s Reflection” The Black Land by Jakian Parks

Flowers and Parks explained that the titles of the photographs further emphasize the meaning behind each image. “The photo where the two cowboys are back to back is called ‘Brotherhood.’ These two individuals’ bond is, like, incomparable. When I was out there hanging out with them, I just saw a different type of brotherhood. They were ‘ride or die’ for each other, like they would actually die for each other,” Parks remembers.

“There’s another photo in the show called ‘Homegirls,’ and it’s of these girls together that I shot in Boley, Oklahoma, at the rodeo. I saw these girls all together, hanging out, with lollipops in their hands, and I was just thinking in my head, like ‘This is the most incredible shot right here.’ I just imagine that they just got done talking sh*t, you know, hanging out while they’re on the way to the rodeo. So that’s how that kind of title came up for that one.”

“Titling the images and speaking life into each one before selecting which images will be on display,” was one of Flowers’ main contributions to this exhibition, she says. “We selected the images that we believe will make people feel something and are emotion-provoking. The ones that people can [sense] themselves in. Somewhere in that perfect space between ordinary and magical.”

She continues, “The Black perspective being uplifted, and exemplifying magnificence. They look ethereal through these images, and I’m proud to present Black lives in a way that isn’t based in despair and lack. I have really strong, passionate ideas and feelings surrounding Blackness, and I think it has really been rewarding learning about all of the things our ancestors have done. It’s really become my life’s work to pass on history that is accurate, and discover information that is happy, and also astonishing. Some of these people are being interviewed for the first time.”

Both Parks and Flowers hope that this showcase of Black culture continues to reclaim the territory that this community has built over generations. “Different cities and states are known for different things, and we should be known for Black cowboys because we are home to most of them,” says Parks. “I want to one day see Black cowboy paintings as soon as you enter the city, because this is their stomping grounds.”

Opening at Oklahoma Contemporary on Nov. 6, The Black Land will be showcased at the Mary LeFlore Clements Oklahoma Gallery through June 1, 2026. •

Follow Jakian Parks’ journey on Instagram @jakianparks and @oklahomacowboys, and find details for The Black Land exhibition at Oklahoma Contemporary @okcontemporary and oklahomacontemporary.org.

Now You See It …

Brian Knight’s exquisitely eye-catching supercar

STORY & IMAGES BY MICHAEL KINNEY

The KTM X-BO GT-XR has a long and complicated name. It looks and sounds more like the answer to a college math problem than a European supercar.

Yet, that is exactly what it is. With its Batmobile look and race car speed, for those lucky enough to see one in the wild, it’s a definite head-turner.

Which is why Brian Knight had to have one. While he is not Bruce Wayne or Lewis Hamilton, the anesthesiologist from Lawton does have an affinity for exotic cars that go fast.

So, when the opportunity arose earlier this summer and he was able to add the GT-XR to his list of supercars, he leapt at the chance. Less than two weeks after dropping more than half a million on it, Knight and his wife Kristen hauled it up to Tulsa’s Raceway Park for a night of drag racing.

“I found out the next day from Iroz Motorsports that there are some things we can do to go faster. We will give those a try and do it again. We will end up doing drag races, roll races, take it to tracks like Circuit of the Americas down in Austin,” says Knight. “That’s a track Formula 1 uses for their races.”

Knight has owned a variety of different vehicles; everything from a 1994 Twin Turbo Toyota Supra to a McLaren has sat in his driveway. But he said the KTM X-BO GT-XR is different from anything else he has owned or driven. From its fighter jet canopy to its carbon fiber body, it was designed to stand out.

“I don’t think currently there’s anything else out there that I want. I really like this car. I don’t see myself getting rid of this one for a while,” says Knight. “I think I’ll have it for a few years. You never know what’s going to come around the horizon … but currently I really like this one.”

Built by the Austrian company KTM, the street-legal race car weighs only 2,755 pounds and can go 691 miles on a single 96-liter tank. While the GT-XR can hit a top speed of 174 mph, that is still somewhat slower than other vehicles Knight has possessed. What separates it from the pack is its ability to handle turns at high speeds like a Formula 1 race car.

KTM has limited the manufacturing of the GT-XR to only 100 per year. So, with fewer than 300 currently in existence worldwide, it has become a heavily sought-after supercar for collectors with extreme tastes.

“KTM X-BOW GT-XR owners can rest assured that the super sports car remains extremely limited and an exclusive piece of machinery, with a maximum of 100 units produced per year,” said Michael Wölfling, Managing Director of KTM Sportcar GmbH, after the 100th GT-XR was built last summer.

Knight’s passion for exotic, fast cars started at an early age. Like many kids who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, the dream car was a Lamborghini.

The 1969 Lamborghini Miura is considered by many to be the world’s first supercar, while the 1986 Lamborghini Countach was plastered on the bedroom walls of young boys and grown men across the country.

“The first real car I ended up buying a couple of years after graduating from anesthesia school was a Lamborghini,” says Knight. “It took me a few years to get to it. But I got it.” He purchased a 2011 Rosso Andromeda (red) Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera. He rebuilt the twin turbo motor and took it and its 2,000 horsepower around the country racing on half-mile tracks. That was when his passion for speed was ignited.

But getting the Lambo also meant something personal to Knight.

“It felt like I had made it,” Knight says of the accomplishment. “I think I made a post on Facebook of, ‘This wasn’t just a car for me, but it was a car for my parents who helped support me when I needed money when I was in anesthesia school.’ They never made a lot of money. And yet if I needed something to get through school, they made it happen. I realized that it took a lot of people to help me get to where I was. And so it was like a success thing that made me feel like this is for everybody.”

Having obtained the dream car at an early age, it didn’t take long for Knight’s eye to start to wander. He also got tired of bumping his head on the roof when arranging his 6-foot-5 frame inside the car.

Knight ended up selling the Lamborghini and took a break from his exotic car obsession for a couple of years, until he purchased a 2021 McLaren 765LT.

The McLaren lasted a year before Knight started plotting on how to make the X-BO GT-XR his newest conquest in early 2025.

“I was looking around for other options. I really liked the McLaren. It was really quick, but it was missing some fields, like the sound and—it just was missing something,” Knight explains. “I started looking around, saw the KTM, and loved the way it looks.”

As someone used to V10s and Twin Turbo V8s, Knight was initially dissuaded by the GT-XR’s 2.5-liter, five-cylinder Audi RS3 engine, which “only” produces 500 horsepower. While that is good enough to go from 0 to 62 mph in 3.4 seconds, Knight still wanted more power.

But after finding out he could add 1,300 horsepower to the motor without any issues, Knight was locked in.

“Now, I’m not worried about the power level, and I love the way the car looks,” Knight says. “Then it just became more real and I started trying to work on building one. I was already in the process of going through KTM directly and having one built. I was picking the colors.”

KTM doesn’t mass-produce its vehicles. It work with its customers to individually build their perfect car. So, every car that rolls out of the plant in Graz, Austria, is in many ways one-of-one.

“Allowing our customers to craft their very own super sports car was one of the best decisions we ever made,” stated Wölfling. “More than 90% of KTM X-BOW GT-XR drivers have configured their model as a one-of-a-kind. In other words, almost every single car that rolls off the production line is a unique specimen.”

Knight’s original plan was for his GT-XR to have a transparent purple that would allow the carbon fiber pattern underneath the paint to be seen. Once all the details were out of the way and the bank had approved the finances, he was just waiting to put up the down payment.

“I’ve told my kids since they were young, people’s feelings matter more to me than material objects. So, if you can spread happiness and joy and share that with other people, do it.”

BRIAN KNIGHT

But that was when things went off course.

The initial price was just over $560,000. But when President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs were introduced, it raised the total to more than $700,000. That was a price Knight was unwilling to pay.

Founding deadCenter Executive Director Cacky Poarch with Amy Janes

“I make good money, but I don’t make $140,000 ‘throw away for no reason’ kind of money,” Knight says. “I’m still a stingy person. I’m not just going to throw away money for no reason. I’ll just wait. That’s when this other one became available.”

Knight got word that a GT-XR was going to be put up for sale after a businessman in Chicago fell on hard times and needed money fast.

Even though the Chicago car was fully stocked with all the trims and premium accessories and had only 112 kilometers (69 miles) on the odometer, Knight’s offer of $535,000 was accepted. After less than an hour and a half of negotiating, he became the owner of just the 215th GT-XR in the world.

The car was delivered in mid-August while Knight was in Kansas working. When he got back to Lawton, he took it to the gas station that night. By the time he got home, photos of his new ride had already been posted on various Facebook pages.

Besides the look and agility that the gloss carbon fiber (black) GTXR offers, what sold Knight on the car was its exclusiveness. While there are only eight in the United States, he now has the only one in the Central Time Zone. That includes Texas, which surprised him.

Despite its uniqueness, Knight doesn’t plan to keep it out of public view. While it’s not his everyday car, he won’t be afraid to take it for a spin around town.

A few days after the GT-XR was delivered, Knight drove it to the top of Mount Scott to get some photos as the sun set. A crowd quickly surrounded the vehicle, wanting to gawk, ask questions and take photos with it. A graduating senior from Cache was lucky enough to be up there at the same time and was able to get some senior photos posing with it, and a father asked if he could get photos with his young son sitting in it. Knight happily obliged.

“I’ve told my kids (Sofia and Cal) since they were young, people’s feelings matter more to me than material objects,” Knight says. “So, if you can spread happiness and joy and share that with other people, do it. If I had the money to buy a $3 billion car, I would still do it. I don’t care. A car is just a car.” •

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Proofing Concepts

High-end specialty bakeries are enjoying a moment in the Oklahoma spotlight

BY GREG HORTON

TikTok discovered L’Arc Patisserie in central Oklahoma City in late spring this year; like so many trends on that platform, the long lines were filled with users who knew Chef Li Xiaoli made beautiful food, but who by and large knew nothing about French patisseries. At roughly the same time, Jean-Baptiste Saint Amon started dealing with long lines outside his eponymous Saint Amon Baking Co. in south Tulsa, and again, the lines seemed to be forming for Dubai chocolate croissants or other pastries guests had seen on the platform with nearly zero understanding of what constitutes a viennoiserie.

The components of traditional European bakeries — mirror-glazed desserts, croissants and loaves of bread — have long been present in Oklahoma, even as the specifics of patisserie, viennoiserie and boulangerie were literal foreign concepts to average consumers. Alongside that truth is the fact that Oklahoma has not been home to the highest quality of those products, until recently.

Explosion is too strong a word to describe the growth in highend bakeries in the state, and as Saint Amon points out, there are only a handful of classically trained bakers in Oklahoma, but their influence far exceeds their number. The trend probably truly began with Chefs Matt Ruggi and Laura Szyld at Ganache Patisserie in Chisholm Creek on OKC’s northernmost edge, but Ganache has always been a combination patisserie and viennoiserie, making chocolate desserts, cakes and croissants. The husband-and-wife team did introduce many locals to the idea of European baking, and within the past few years, spots like L’Arc Patisserie, Quincy Bake Shop, Saint Amon Baking Co., Creme de la Crumb and Twisted Tree Baking Company in Edmond and Tulsa’s Country Bird Bakery have drawn regional and national attention, including a James Beard Award finalist nod to Chef Cat Cox of Country Bird.

Chef Noel Nugent opened Creme de la Crumb in September 2024 in an area of Edmond near Arcadia that is seeing substantial growth. Nugent grew up in Dallas, and after high school moved to Europe. She worked in a bakery in Vienna, which reignited her childhood love of baking, so she enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts to pursue her dream of becoming a pastry chef.

“I chose the London location, because you had to be able to speak French to attend the school in France,” Nugent says. “The program was militant in some ways, but I’m glad it was so regimented, because that’s exactly how a commercial bakery operates—on a very set schedule where seconds mean everything to quality.”

Nugent came back to the area to be near her mother, and did what bakers do; she looked for bakeries around OKC. “I found so many chains and franchises, especially out where I am, and I’m kind of a food snob in that I think we should use as much local sourcing as possible, and Oklahoma has great co-op options.”

Saint Amon came to Oklahoma to attend OSU, and his experience mirrors Nugent’s in one important way. “The plan was for me to go to the OSU international program,” he says. “Instead, I started working right away. I quickly realized that Tulsa was lacking in high-end bakeries. There were a lot of cupcake shops or cookie shops, but not that many bakeries. And even those few bakeries were making basic desserts and pastries, and that’s when I knew an authentic French bakery would work.”

He opened Saint Amon Baking Co. in 2016, but it wasn’t until 2021, when he relocated to his spot near Oral Roberts University, that his business exploded. “We tripled our volume with that move,” he says. Born in Dax in southwestern France, Saint Amon was going to be an engineer before opting for a baking career, which entailed a five-year pastry program. He came to the U.S. in 2010 for the first time, and relocated permanently in 2013.

Why the sudden interest in Oklahoma among high-end bakers? This is not a national trend. When L’Arc and Saint Amon hit TikTok, people were driving in from Texas, Arkansas, Kansas and even farther to try the offerings. The curiosity has been good for baking, and all the bakers said they didn’t know for sure how things would go. Li says, “I wasn’t sure if people in OKC would understand my product well enough with the components, but I am sure they will understand eventually. I did not expect long lines, but I have faith that I can do well.” And she has. But the answer to “why now?” might be as simple as economics.

“… I’m kind of a food snob in that I think we should use as much local sourcing as possible, and Oklahoma has great co-op options.”

CHEF NOEL NUGENT

OPPOSITE:

L’Arc Patisserie’s Chef Li Xiaoli offers a selection of entrements in her pastry case.

LEFT:

Lemon meringue croissant from Chef Jean-Baptiste Saint Amon

BELOW:

A deconstructed lemon meringue tart adorned with a hand-pulled sugar halo from Creme de la Crumb

Nugent said Oklahoma is a desirable location for bakers, both for the lack of high-end competition, and because it’s just less expensive to operate here. “You can open a burger joint for $20,000,” she says, “but a bakery is equipment- and resource-intensive. A laminator alone is $40,000, and that’s only one of the pieces of equipment required. It’s easier to invest in the necessary equipment when the rent is low.”

Chef Li trained in Anhui Province, China, before taking a position at a Macao bakery that serviced multiple concepts, including Chef Joel Robuchon’s 3-Michelin-star Robuchon au Dôme in the Grand Lisboa Hotel. The pastry chefs there furthered her understanding of French pastry techniques, and as with Nugent, her program was at times regimented to the point of militant. It’s a similar story for all the pastry chefs who hope to create and succeed at their level.

To make it happen at that level requires a couple of shifts in the culture, and the first is the current lack of specific educational options. Some of our state’s best pastry chefs, including Chef Alyssa Ulrich at Harvey Bakery, attended generalized programs. Ulrich said she was fortunate enough to come across chefs like Chef Claes Passmark at Francis Tuttle who took a personal interest in furthering her education by helping her drill down to the important techniques that make her so good with viennoiserie products.

Saint Amon said the other thing Oklahoma needs to continue to improve is a better supplier network. “Some states have suppliers specialized in baking only,” he says. “They can get a wide variety of quality ingredients, equipment, etc. Here the main suppliers are Ben E. Keith and Sysco, and they don’t have much to offer. Often we will have to find things online and pay crazy shipping costs or drive to neighboring states.”

Finally, the shift that most needs to happen is a culture that understands and respects the baking niches: boulangerie, patisserie and viennoiserie. Understanding that you can’t run into a patisserie and expect a mass-production environment where you can grab what you want when you want. Chef Li’s process is 2-3 days, so when she’s out, she’s out. Same with the viennoiserie’s proofed dough. Once you sell through it, it will be the next day before more is ready. Will we Oklahomans sacrifice convenience for quality? These bakers are betting on us. •

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$910,000 | 15613 Via Sierra www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$355,705 | 11201 Ward Road www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$599,900 | 18443 Boardwalk Crossing www.OKLuxuryHomes.com LISTED BY: Wyatt Poindexter, The Agency 111 N Broadway Ave | Suite 1 | Edmond, OK 73034 405-417-5466 | TheAgencyRe.com

$1,625,000 | 610 Lawrence Drive www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$995,000 | 619 NE 5th Street www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$875,000 | 2215 Blackberry Run www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$215,000 | 28 Patriot Pointe www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$1,560,000 | 1309 NW 156th Terrace www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$965,000 | 10024 NE 145th Street www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$869,000 | 3917 Stone Bluff Way www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

$125,000 | 2 Hollow Ranch www.OKLuxuryHomes.com

ASHTON GROVE

is a unique and picturesque community nestled on a rare expanse of land in Northwest Norman. With its gently rolling hills, mature trees, and serene lakes, this exceptional neighborhood offers the perfect balance of natural beauty and refined living. Through the gated entrance, you’ll be greeted by elegant homes surrounded by lush landscapes and peaceful vistas. Every detail of this community is thoughtfully crafted to offer an unparalleled living experience, providing a serene environment where elegance and nature come together.

LOTS

Introducing 2541 West Wilshire Boulevard, an unparalleled modernist retreat, exceptionally positioned on a commanding 0.61-acre lot. This architectural compound unfolds as a zen sanctuary, showcasing high-caliber artistry, impeccably curated interiors, and dramatic scale enhanced by organic materials and panoramic walls of glass framing the serene, resort-like grounds.

rare offering in Nichols Hills. Meticulously reimagined and entirely reconstructed with precision between 2024 and 2025, this sophisticated contemporary residence epitomizes enduring quality craftsmanship, timeless design, and quintessential

ABit of Joy

As a leading luxury real estate agent and the CEO of Engel & Völkers in Oklahoma City, I’ve dedicated my career to curating exceptional living experiences for discerning clients. Recognized by Newsweek as the top chosen Realtor, named among the Best of OKC, highlighted by 405 Magazine as a top agent, and honored by RealTrends and Zillow, I’ve built a reputation on excellence. As part of Engel & Völkers’ exclusive Private Office, representing the top 2% of advisors worldwide, I bring a uniquely tailored approach to each client’s needs.

On the opposite side, you’ll find a showcase of distinguished properties I’ve had the pleasure of selling; each one a testament to the caliber of service and dedication you can expect. And yes, that’s my adorable canine co-star, Fifi, reminding us that home is where we find comfort, luxury, and a bit of joy.