The only American designer for high fashion retailer Hermés lives in Waco, Texas—and works as a postal worker:

Kermit was sitting in the living room, in an armchair covered by a red-and-white quilt. He stood up when I arrived. He was small-framed, with salt-and-pepper hair combed off his forehead. Dressed in loose khakis and an untucked plaid oxford shirt, he gave the impression of a small-town surgeon who’d just gotten off the late shift. His eyeglasses were in his hands, which continuously fidgeted while the rest of him stood still. ‘Why do you want to talk to me?’ he asked. 

I stammered something about his story, how interesting it was. He looked skeptical. ‘Why don’t you tell me what my story is,’ he said. I told him what they had said in Lyon, reciting the words almost like the first line of a fable: ‘There once was a postman who designed scarves for Hermès.’

‘Well, it’s never that simple,’ he said with a mysterious grin.

“Portrait of the Artist as a Postman.” — Jason Sheeler, Texas Monthly

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