Shannon Fisher Debuts Halt+Rein, Competitive Equestrian Turned Jewelry Designer to the Stars

By: Brittany Bevis

If you’re a regular on the horse show circuit then you’re probably familiar with Shannon Fisher, the other half of Alan Fisher Performance Horses located in Fayetteville, North Carolina. This petite, bubbly blonde can often be seen at major APHA and AQHA show circuits with her trusty banding box in tow as she heads off to finish up as many as twelve horses before dinnertime.

What you may not know about Fisher is that she has a passion besides horses, a passion for fashion, specifically fashion accessories. Since 2004, Fisher has been designing, creating, and selling her own jewelry under the name of Shannon Rene Designs. For the past few years, Fisher has primarily utilized Facebook to promote her small business. Her pieces have also been available in a handful of NC-based speciality boutiques such as Eve Avery Boutique in Southern Pines and Ziabird in Wilmington.

Just before the 2013 Quarter Horse Congress, Fisher signed a contract with a public relations company that plans to market her pieces to Hollywood elite and the general public under the new name, Halt+Rein. In the past few months, Fisher’s pieces have made appearances on a New Year’s Eve special on the Hallmark Channel with Lawrence Zarian, the Queen Latifah Show, the Arsenio Hall show, and even on the red carpet at the WIN Awards.

Interestingly enough, this whirlwind ride started as a result of a contact she had in the horse industry.

“It kind of fell in my lap last year,” she says. “I’d already done what I could with branching out into local stores around here. I’ve got some friends in California that show Paint halter horses. His regular job is being a celebrity photographer. He saw my stuff on Facebook and called me one day. He asked if I did this as a business or a hobby.”

“He said, ‘How about you send us a half a dozen pieces, and we’ll use them on the models we shoot. Maybe it will go somewhere. If it doesn’t, it will be free publicity.’ I sent him some pieces in April and May of last year. During the summer, I got a text message saying that a PR company wanted to talk to me. Right before the Congress, I signed a contract and we got it rolling.”

When selecting a new name for her jewelry business, Fisher sat down with members of her PR company to discuss a way they could keep Fisher’s horse heritage within the brand.

“I gave him every possible term that I could think of, that we use with the horses, and he picked Halt and Rein,” she says. “We definitely want it to have a horse feel to it.”

“People have always been so interested in the story that goes behind [my jewelry]. A lot of my pieces are big. At the store in Wilmington, one of the biggest things people say is, ‘that’s too big for me.’ [The ladies at the store] would say, ‘oh no, you can wear it. You should see the person that makes it. She’s five foot tall and handles horses all day long.’ Then, they would be interested to hear the story about me and where this all originated from. It has helped seal the deal on a lot of sales. Normal people are intrigued by how we [horse people] live!

“Even my PR guy said, ‘I have to be quite honest. Your life amazes me.’ I tell him there’s nothing fantastic about it. I’m either working in the cold or sweating my butt off. There’s nothing glorious about it!”

When Fisher isn’t in her design studio creating miniature works of art, she can be seen on the AQHA show circuit competing in non-pro western pleasure with one of her many mounts. Before she began showing in AQHA competition, she was a restaurant manager for a well-known eatery in Greensboro. But even back then, there was a horse connection that she wasn’t aware of.

“Before I moved to Fayetteville, I was a restaurant manager at Lucky 32 restaurant,” she says. “The funny thing is that it was set up in a complex owned by Gerri Leigh Pratt. I knew her even before I started showing Quarter Horses!”

“When I left the restaurant industry in the end of 2003 and moved down to live with Alan, I didn’t work for awhile. I was trying to focus on finishing school. Prior to that, I had worked 60-80 hours a week and showed on the weekends. I moved to Fayetteville, finished school, and I was basically trying to find something that would fit in with horse shows so I could be with Alan. A feasible nine to five, Monday through Friday job just wasn’t going to do it anymore. I used jewelry as a way to have some sort of income coming in, and I didn’t have to go to the office everyday.”

What once began as a way to earn some extra cash has blossomed into a booming enterprise that shows no signs of slowing down.

“I never in a million years thought my stuff would be on television,” she says. “It’s all a little surreal. Who would’ve thought that little ole’ me from North Carolina would be featured in a New Year’s Eve special on the Hallmark channel!”

“My jewelry was featured on the Queen Latifah show a couple of weeks ago. The main actress for the show Single Ladies on VH1, LisaRay McCoy, has actually worn several of my pieces. She was also wearing a pair of my earrings on the Arsenio Hall show a month ago.”

The first time Fisher saw one of her pieces being worn by a celebrity, she could hardly believe her eyes. Kearran Giovanni, the actress who plays detective Amy Sykes on the hit TV series Major Crimes, was photographed wearing a pair of Fisher’s earrings on the red carpet.

“That’s when I realized, ok, this is real. I looked at the picture, and that’s when it became real to me,” she says. “It can be a little overwhelming, but I try not to think about it too much. I just take it one day at a time. It’s exactly like the horse industry. That’s how I deal with everything, by relating it to the horse world. It’s just like before you even go to a horse show you can blow your mind before you get there.”

Fisher’s new website, Halt+Rein.com, is currently under construction and is expected to be complete later this month. Although the site is not yet fully functioning, fans of Fisher’s jewelry can browse through her collection and access the e-mail contact area. Scroll below to view more photos of Fisher’s most recent designs.