You’re Gonna Lovett!

If I could bottle and sell every single thing that makes stunning, 78-year-old Babbie Lovett one spectacular woman, I’d become a zillionaire.

You’ll meet Babbie—fashion show producer, former model, entrepreneur, great grandmother, great friend and free spirit—when faboverfifty.com launches in a couple of months. Please enjoy some of her humor, inspiration, imagination, style and unbridled enthusiasm right now.

On her home:

“I grew up in a small town, with big-time ideas. [McCrory, Arkansas] has 1,800, when everyone’s home. It’s remained a wonderful little town. There’s one of every kind here, and every kind supports the other. Until I was out of town, I thought everyone loved me. I think that’s really been the basis of my life.”

On her life as a girl:

“I was born in the 30s and the movies of the 40s really influenced me. Our little town had a little movie theatre that changed films every three days. I’d be the characters who I most admired in a movie–until the next movie. I loved playing Let’s Pretend from the time I was an itsy bitsy girl.” (Let’s Pretend, Babbie explained, was a Saturday radio show in the 40s.)

On her outlook of life:

“When things are going the way I want them too, it’s wonderful. When they don’t, I pretend they are.”

On her mother:

“I have the privilege of having a 97-year-old mother.  She’s totally the diva of the family. She really doesn’t want my advice, but I have to be around if she needs something, so I stay in the bushes. She has total recall and she’s sharper in some respects than I am. Mother was absolutely a cheerleader for me and my brother. She was a powerfully controlling woman who kept us on path but she had a difficult time with me because I was a wild child. Mother and daddy wanted me to be a Persian cat on a pillow but I’m an alley cat.”

On her problem-solving ability:

“I’m of the moment in every respect and I’m an ad libber.  My cell phone started vibrating and I didn’t know how to get it off of vibrant, so I put it in my bra to feel it when it rang.”

On fashion:

“I love to make the changes that the fashion industry dictates. But fashion dictates so little now; the street does more. The bar code changed the industry. When the stores started to consolidate, it became all about the bottom line. The stores wanted numbers, not customers. Now it’s all so impersonal.  So few places are left where you actually know the people who own the stores. A great store cares about its customers.

“Fashion is like a costume you wear for the day that represents the character you are.  Every morning I say ‘let’s see, it’s a new day. What play are we going to be in?’”

On women:

“One of the things that’s exiting to me now is that [FOF] women are not competing as much. They’re still competitive but they’re opening up to each other and becoming friends.”

On living alone since her husband died years ago:

“To be quite honest, I’ve never been lonely in my entire life because I’ve been blessed with an imagination.  I just love people. If I get lonely, I just go out and have dinner and watch people.”