Through the Looking Glass

Stroll along the 500 block of Main Street in Natchez this month and there’s a shop hwindow you can scarcely fail to notice. You might imagine that a small slice of Fifth Avenue has been dropped lock, stock, and pink-and-gold garlanded barrel into downtown Natchez and, in a sense, you’d be right. What you’ve stumbled upon is the whimsical kingdom (or queendom) of Olivia Pate, aka “Lady Olivina,” who, with her mother, Sue, elevates the craft of window dressing to its highest expression during the Christmas season. Like a lovingly wrapped gift, the shop windows at Olivina Boutique offer passers-by a tantalizing introduction to their creator’s personal wonderland—a sumptuous Christmas diorama to rival any that a child might find to press her nose against along New York’s famous shopping avenue.

“The shop is a combination of my three inspirations: Neverland, Whoville, and the Land of Oz,” explained the Lady Olivina, downing tools to explain to a visitor how all this came to pass. When COVID cut short a five-year stint at New York’s William Esper actor training studio, Olivia Pate came home to Natchez looking for a project into which to pour her barely restrained creativity. “When I came home I needed something to do,” she remarked. “It has always been my dream to be in a world filled with the most whimsical, fantastical things, so I opened up my own Wonderland.” Inside Olivina, the Pates present exquisitely curated fashion, beauty, and home décor collections. But at Christmastime it’s in the window displays that Pate’s unrestrained creativity really shines.

The glowing jewelry boxes frame a snow-capped streetscape of extraordinarily detailed gingerbread houses, each meticulously hand-made by the Lady Olivina from that most mundane of raw materials: cardboard. “The first was an old dollhouse I embellished,” Pate said. “I add all of my favorite things that go on in my head, cutting and carving all the intricate details: window frames, scalloping. I put everything I love into creating them to build a little community, where you can peep into the windows and be transported into a holiday scene.” Last Christmas the houses were such a hit with customers that this year, the Lady Olivina is taking commissions, and envisages her Christmas houses becoming centerpieces in her customers’ own holiday traditions. “Right now, I’m building a giant church that looks like [Natchez’s] St. Mary Basilica,” said Pate, who has moved her workshop to the windows so that passers-by can glimpse the magic taking shape. “I create my own things because I don’t want to have what everyone else has,” she said. “I just love making something that, just for a second, makes people forget where they are.”

Olivina’s Christmas Houses take around a week to build and cost between $200–$400. olivinanatchez.com.