Tabs

I was looking through some old pictures of Tabs from last Christmas, like this one. He was so happy because he’d just redecorated his office…

Oh, and this one: this was his outfit for the company Christmas party…

Simply put, he was a fashion genius.

The coat was custom made from the actual red carpet for the 85th Cat Academy Awards in 2014. That was the year Tabs won the Oscar for Best Cat Actor…

Every year, he pulled out all the stops at Christmas… ?

Everybody knew it. He was fearless when it came to fashion.

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“The show must go on.” And it did, despite questionable fur. When Tabs performed his Tony Award-winning one-cat rendition of The Nutcracker in 2015, he did it without the help of his favorite fur stylist.

It all went down on opening night, two hours before the show, when we got a last-minute call from celebrity hair/fur stylist Jen Atkin. She had gotten the flu, and she wasn’t going to be able to do Tabs’s fur backstage for the performance.

Everyone was shocked. Slowly, Tabs put down his phone and said, “Meow…”

I’d never heard him say it that way before, and it sent shivers down my spine.

Since there wasn’t enough time to find another stylist of Jen’s caliber, and there was no way Tabs was going to entrust his magnificent fur to someone new, he did the next most logical thing. He styled his mane himself.

Boom.

Needless to say, Tabs gave a masterful performance. Anyone who was there that night will tell you there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

It has been called the greatest inter-species partnership in kitty modeling history — the friendship between Tabs and Gerard, the award-winning Parisian turkey model.

It all started when Tabs was recovering from the career-ending tail injury he suffered during the 2006 feline football season when he played for the Mill Valley Wildcats. One day during his rehabilitation, Tabs received a letter from a fan in France who had been following his feline football career. That fan turned out to be Gerard the turkey — yes, the same Gerard who led the PPL (Parisian Poultry League) in goals from 2002-2005.

The two of them became fast friends and pen pals, and Gerard was there for Tabs through some very dark times. Tabs came to discover that Gerard also suffered a career-ending athletic injury (turf talon), and that he didn’t lose hope after his injury. No, Gerard used it as his motivation to transition into poultry modeling.

When Tabs was well enough, he flew to Paris to meet Gerard. That’s where Tabs first got his start in kitty modeling. You see, it was Gerard who introduced Tabs to his first feline modeling agent. ?

Over the next six months, Tabs and Gerard worked together on more than two dozen cat-turkey modeling gigs.

They broke barriers and shocked the world!

A lot of people think it was Miss J. Alexander who showed Tabs how to strut down a catwalk and navigate the kitty modeling world, but no, it was actually a Parisian turkey named Gerard. ?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

This time of year always reminds me of one of the most astounding acts of selflessness and courage I’ve ever seen.

The year: 2012. The place: New York City, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The night before the parade, disaster struck the team in charge of the company float for Tabs the Cat Industries LLC. The float wasn’t going to be ready in time because the white roses the team special ordered from Belgium got held up in customs, so Tabs stayed up all night long decorating the entire float himself with local flowers he picked himself from around Central Park.

And as if that weren’t incredible enough, Tabs purr-formed the role of Master of Ceremonies the next morning and walked beside the company float (he also danced atop the float with Beyoncé).

It was one of the most historic displays of dedication by a corporate cat executive in American business history.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

I feel so lucky to have been able to work with one of the most iconic figures in feline fashion history. Tabs was a fiercely fashionable cat who cared just as much about his coat as he cared about his accessories.

He was also the first cat to make affordable fashion-forward feline felt merchandise for the masses, thanks to his huge distribution deal with Target. He was a legend in the feline fashion community. He really was.

His Gorgeous Glistening Gourd Pumpkin Travel Backpack is still the bestselling cat accessory of all time.

And his Wicked Whiskers Wizarding Hat is still a favorite among kittens.

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Tabs was a real dynamo, in more ways than one. He was also a skilled dynamo operator.

Dynamo, as in one of those emergency radios with the hand crank you can turn to juice them up. I’ll never forget the time we lost power at the home office for three days, and Tabs kept the entire office running through sheer force of will and gravy-fueled feline ingenuity.

If you heard him tell it, he would say that he did what he had to do…to keep kitty modeling, because this was back in 2014, which was at the peak of his modeling career. He always had a full plate of gigs lined up, and he did that week too.

When the power went out around 8 a.m. on that fateful Tuesday, Tabs was shooting a photo spread for Chanel…

But he didn’t panic. Not for a second. He kicked it into high gear. He knew he had to keep the photography lights on and needed to be able to hear the news, so he pulled out his trusty emergency radio and started cranking.

Then he climbed up on the roof and made sure the office solar array was working.

Thankfully, it was! So we were able to keep the lights on AND the gravy refrigerator running.

Ours was the only building in the neighborhood that had power, so Tabs invited all the local kitties who didn’t have power at home over to the office so they could store their gravy in the company fridge.

That’s just the kind of cat he was. ?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen