Snap Shot
story: Melissa Mendonca
photos: Tracye Dethero
GIRLS WITH GUNS: A RED BLUFF-BASED CLOTHING LINE
When Norissa Harmon began dating her husband, Brian, she realized quickly that she’d get more face time in with him if she learned to hunt. Watching her friend enjoy the sport, Jenifer Adams decided to take it up, too. Jen had been raised on an 800-acre ranch in Adin amongst hunters, but had never learned herself because she kept busy with rodeos. “We didn’t actually trophy hunt,” she says of her family. “We did it to eat.”
Today the two are Girls with Guns (GWG), owners of a nationally known women’s clothing line based in Red Bluff. “Our line is based around our lifestyle,” says Norissa. “It is based on who we are.” Who they are is multifacted and variously interested: hunters, fishers, snowboarders, wakeboarders, barrel racers. She describes the woman attracted to the Girls with Guns lifestyle line simply: “She loves the outdoors. She loves pink.” Jen adds, “There’s always a little bit of sexy, too.”
The endeavor began in a living room with five friends, staying up all hours to help Norissa and Jen iron GWG logos and designs onto T-shirts and hats in preparation for their first show at the Red Bluff Bull and Gelding sale in 2009. Finding success there, they booked a gun show in Reno, expecting it to be a much bigger venue than Red Bluff.
With less than 300 people in attendance, they now describe it as a “hole-in-the-wall gun show,” nowhere near what they were expecting. Still, as the saying goes, good things come in small packages.
“By the end of the day I had the number of the head buyer of Scheels,” says Norissa. “It was only our second show.” The two quickly bundled up several GWG items in a bag and attached a handwritten note with a stapler to deliver to the buyer. They laugh now at how down home it all was, but their quick follow up paid off. GWG products are now available in 18 Scheels stores across the country.
The line has also been picked up by Sportsman Warehouse stores in three states. Locally, they are available at The Loft in Red Bluff, Huntington’s in Oroville and Adin Supply in Adin.
While waiting for results of the Scheels package to manifest, the girls found another opportunity to seize. In March 2010, Alaska governor Sarah Palin arrived in Redding as the keynote speaker at the Shasta Cascade Logging Conference. Again, the duo created a bag of samples, this time with more attention to presentation. A friend delivered it, though they were never positive it actually reached Palin. Eight months later, they received confirmation when a representative of Mark Burnett Productions called asking for rights for Palin to wear her GWG hat on her TLC reality show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” After the show aired, the girls were deluged with orders.
Today, the GWG business has grown to include two lines a year, summer and winter. Contracts have been signed with manufacturing companies, relieving the girls and their friends of production duty in a living room and garage. They have contracted with Mossy Oak Camouflage as one of only three women’s clothing manufacturers allowed to use their product in their designs. They’ve added purple to the line, which is quickly becoming as popular as pink.
The designs include practical touches, such as extra pockets for cell phones and water bottles in the shell bags and a more fashionable and safety-enhanced gun holster. Each line includes up to nine designs and includes sweatshirts, bikinis, board shorts. backpacks, hats and more.
The girls are in awe of “the response not only from our little community but nationwide,” says Norissa. Noting a recent email from a 72-year-old woman in GWG gear at a shooting event, she adds, “We’re really for all ages, from the little kids to the 72-year-old ladies who just won their first shooting contest.”
While Jen and Norissa could be described as workaholics—they both maintain full-time jobs while growing the Girls with Guns business — they are preparing to take a little time off in the near future to hunt red stag in New Zealand. Jen says they maintain a pretty simple philosophy about their business amidst all the responsibilities: “The day that our friendship is at risk or the day we stop having fun, we’re done.” •
