Story by Julia Bunch for Lone Star Outdoor News
Britt Longoria loves wild animals and wild places, and she likes working with her hands. So it was only a matter of time before she combined two of her passions.
After shawls that Longoria created for herself using pheasant feathers and cashmere were admired by others, she decided to open a shawl line called Hawkhurst South in late 2018.
“I’ve always admired the Gilded Age where ladies used feathers as fashion elements,” Longoria said. “If there’s a way I can combine the use of feathers in a sustainable manner and bring back that old world elegance and lady-like beauty, I’d love to do that.”
She currently offers several feather styles — such as pheasant, mallard and guinea fowl — in earth-tone colors on her website, hawkhurstsouth.com. Her luxury designs run around $750 each. A few select retail locations, such as Joshua Creek Ranch in Boerne and various pro shops, also sell the shawls.
Nearly half of Longoria’s business is custom work. She creates one-of-a-kind designs for weddings or other special events.
“Instead of zipping around on social media or something like that, I like doing something with my hands,” she said. “I enjoy wearing these and I think a lot of other women can appreciate the natural beauty in the birds they’re harvesting.”
Longoria’s typical clientele ranges from outdoor women who are hunters themselves to men buying special presents for their wives after a bird-hunting trip.
As convention season ramps up again, so too does Hawkhurst South. Longoria will soon come out with a different design than her typical shawls and at a lower price point of around $500.
“This will be a transition piece,” she said. “It will be a wool-cashmere blend poncho with feathers on the back and neck.”
Longoria comes by her admiration for animals naturally. She grew up in Maine hunting and living close to nature. After first visiting South Africa at 15 years old, Longoria went on to live in the country for many years, attending university and working at a safari operation. Eventually, she came to settle in Texas’ Hill Country and grow a consulting business called Rock Environmental focused on helping nonprofits. She’s also the executive director of Trinity Oaks, a charity that offers hunting and fishing programs for veterans, youth and families.
She and her husband, Ricardo Longoria, hunt about 120 days per year all over the world. In 2018 after taking a leopard in Namibia, photos of her hunt were leaked without her permission all over the internet, getting picked up by online bullies, Hollywood actors and news media. The outrage rallied around a “Name her and shame her” motto. But Longoria didn’t shy away. Through Instagram and her blog, she has flipped the anti-hunting narrative on its head. Her blog, which she calls Honor the Hunt, attempts to educate nonhunters — not with facts and figures proving how hunting promotes conservation and economic development — but by proving that hunting is a very emotional experience.
“When I decided to answer these people who were so angry and emotional, I found that if I responded in an intellectual way with my heart on my sleeve, they respected me more than if I came back with science or economic numbers,” Longoria said. “I didn’t have anything to be ashamed of and overall I’ve gotten really good feedback.”
