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Babs Boutique is showing at New York Fashion Week — September 13See the show →

About Babs Boutique

Co-Founder & Lead Designer · El Paso Studio

Liz Monroy

An art educator of nineteen years who has been sewing since she was eight — taught, in her mother’s bedroom, how to pin a pattern to fabric.

Portrait of Liz Monroy, co-founder and lead designer of Babs Boutique
In her words

From a pinned pattern
to a New York runway.

Liz’s journey with sewing began at just eight years old, in her mother’s bedroom, where her mother first taught her how to pin a pattern onto fabric. That simple lesson sparked a lifelong love of creating. From those early moments learning alongside her mother, Liz continued sewing, experimenting, and bringing her own ideas to life through fabric.

What began as a childhood skill grew alongside Liz’s identity as an artist and educator. Over the years, sewing became more than simply making clothing. It became another way for her to express her creativity, solve problems, and connect with others. She has continued creating ever since, developing her skills from those first pinned patterns into original garments and custom designs.

Today, Liz brings that lifelong passion to Babs Boutique, where she serves as co-founder and lead designer. Through the boutique, she creates custom garments, provides alterations, teaches sewing lessons and workshops, and works with clients to transform their ideas into pieces made especially for them. Her journey has also taken her from sewing at home as a child to presenting her designs on the runway at New York Fashion Week.

As an art educator with 19 years of experience, teaching remains an important part of Liz’s work at Babs Boutique. She enjoys sharing the skills that were first shared with her as a child and creating opportunities for others to experience the confidence and pride that come from making something with their own hands.

For Liz, Babs Boutique is more than a clothing business. It is a place where her lifelong love of sewing, art, education, and community come together, and where a skill first passed from mother to daughter continues to inspire new generations of makers.

Collections

The work, and what it is for.

Jewels

The collection that walked Runway 7 at New York Fashion Week. Built from jewel-toned fabrics around a single idea — that clothing should let the individual jewel in each wearer emerge. Color, silhouette and texture celebrate the person wearing the piece rather than asking a body to conform to it.

Pre Loved / New Life

Existing garments and discarded materials, dismantled and rebuilt into new pieces, new surfaces and decorative textiles. Less waste, yes — but the real idea is that a textile does not have to lose its history in order to take on a new purpose.

PanCAN

A collection raising awareness and funds for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

Teaching & Study

Nineteen years
in a classroom.

Liz holds a BA in Art Education and an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies, both from the University of Texas at El Paso, where she was selected as Graduate School Banner Bearer. Her graduate research asked how art education can be integrated to benefit adolescent development.

She has spent close to two decades as an art educator with the Socorro Independent School District, and since 2012 has mentored UTEP art-education interns — one or two every year.

That teaching is not separate from the boutique. It is the same work: the sewing lessons, the workshops, and the belief that making something with your own hands changes how you see yourself.

Sewing lessons with Liz

Recognition

  • 2026

    Official Nominee & Top Five Finalist

    Best Children’s Collection — Runway 7 Fashion Awards

  • 2025

    Designer of the Year

    9th Annual Beauty It’s Everywhere Awards, NYFW — with Celeste Green

  • 2025

    On screen in a Lifetime film

    A custom turquoise dress, made by Liz, appears in “I Fell in Love With Santa”

  • Two First Place awards, Fiber Art

    New Mexico State Fair

Babs Boutique has two founders.

Six hundred miles east, in Lufkin, Celeste Green runs the other studio — and most of the business behind both.