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Monique Gibson was born in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, a coal-mining community so picturesque that it serves as the setting of a best selling series of novels by Adriana Trigiani, another native daughter. Gibson is typically unabashed about her own brush with local fame—in her teens she won the title Miss Big Stone Gap—and took full advantage of her pageant winnings (a tank of gas from the local Tiger Market!), heading first toward Knoxville and the University of Tennessee, and then toward Atlanta, where she got her start in interior design. Today, her business is based in Manhattan, where her clients include Jon Bon Jovi, Meg Ryan, and Jon Stewart.