By JEN CHEN
Last May, local residents Tiffany Lewis and Jackie Malena launched Viva Vogue, an e-card Web site for women. Viva Vogue’s cards are a little more risqué than, say, Hallmark or Blue Mountain.
The estro-friendly topics include speed dating, internet dating and PMS, among others. Recurring card characters on the wine-colored Web site include Diva Dish, Prima Pink, Mimi Milan and Coco Couture; a cat named Prada and a lap dog named Paco.
Tiffany and Jackie originally met through work – Tiffany owns an apartment leasing company and Jackie was a real-estate broker. They wanted to create an e-card site as a marketing tool, but when they got the rough draft back with the characters, they decided to change direction and go with chick-themed cards.
“I looked at the e-cards available to women, and they were pretty fluffy,” said Jackie, a 34-year-old married mom of two. She describes Viva Vogue’s cards as fun, and “not quite so duck and rainbow and chirp-chirp-thinking-of-you kind of stuff.”
The characters are inspired by the women on Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. “They’re a combination of the women we were [and] the women we would still like to be in some respects – our lives have calmed down a lot more,” Jackie said. She and Tiffany – along with their writers, who are all women – come up with card topics mainly from their lives and the stories they hear from their friends. The horrors of bra shopping or not having a tampon when it’s most needed – yep, happened to them.
“Somebody asked me the other day when we’re coming out with a plastic surgery card, because it seems like now everyone got done having kids, all we hear about is fake boobs,” Jackie said. “Which is totally not my thing, but I’ll certainly do a card about it.”
Viva Vogue got picked up last December by Glam Media, a California-based Web publishing house that chooses only two Web sites a month to promote to its partners and to its fashion magazine. Jackie and Tiffany are also thinking about rolling out another Web site next spring. It’ll feature Prima Pink’s sister, and will be more geared towards mom humor.
As for starting an e-card site in a town that has had a long greeting-card tradition: “We’re just saying a lot bolder things than Hallmark would ever think of saying,” Jackie said. “They definitely have the market, that’s for sure. There’s room for all of us.”
like
dislike
