Lake Highlands native Preston Pannek and his wife Adrienne make up The House of Pannek. The artistic duo, also the masterminds behind Blowouts & Company and Lash Loft, is responsible for the neighborhood sensation Moouis Vuitton, who made his first appearance in 2022. Since the creation of the life-size cow art piece, Moouis has been on tour, replicated, and even started a family of his own. We sat down with Preston to get the scoop on the origin and future of the iconic cow.
Photography by Yuvie Styles
How did Moouis come to be?
My wife and I are big art fans ourselves, and I kept seeing people doing sculptures over the last couple years and I was like, ‘Man, Dallas really needs a Dallas sculpture, something that represents what Dallas is.’ We were joking around, and I was like, ‘You know what would be funny? A Louis Vuitton cow, and make it into a purse, we could put handles.’ I was telling my wife the whole thing and she was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ I was like ‘It’s super Dallas, though.’ What’s more Dallas than a cow that looks like a Louis Vuitton? And so we started from that idea.
What are these sculptures made of?
It’s made of fiberglass, then it’s made with Bondo on top of that. Just like you make a car pretty much. And then all the little hairlines and stuff that are put on it, if you get up really close, those are actually made with a kitchen fork. And we painted it up and put it out.
How long did it take to make? How many of them are there?
Weeks, weeks, weeks, weeks and weeks. The first one took forever because we didn’t know what we were doing. We had major structural problems with it, with the udders, with the legs. It took a lot of working with it to be able to get it right. The second one, however, came together much quicker, probably two weeks, because we already had the idea. We had a plan.
There’s quite a few Moouis Vuittons, I think five or six in total. But there’s other playoffs of it — two others, and that’s Moocci, which is the Gucci version, and then Moodi, which is the Fendi version.
How do you think Moouis got popular in the city?
The reason why it got so popular is (because) we took it on tour. It just shows up places. Most art pieces stay where they are, and Louis moves around.
You never know where he’s gonna pop up at. He was in front of our house for a while. You can see the other Louis twin at the (Blowouts & Company) salon and obviously the other family members of it. And then right now, I’m actually driving Moouis around every single day, about five hours a day, all through Dallas. It’s in the back of my truck, and it’s all mounted in there on fake astro turf, so it looks like the cow is just hanging out, eating grass in the back of my truck. That has really kind of boosted its popularity lately.
Are there any other cows in your future?
I am working on a Birkin bag version of it, the house Birkin bag, which is my favorite Birkin bag. We are also working on a teddy bear Gucci version, which will have backpack straps for the throwback of the Gucci teddy bear backpacks from the 2000s. It’s over eight feet, nine feet tall. It’s a big boy because you’re able to sit down in its lap.
Where do you hope to see Moouis and the others in the future?
I would love to see them in NorthPark. I would love that more than anything, to see these three cows in a little setting in the middle of NorthPark by the stores. I think it would be amazing there. I think all of Dallas would come out to see it, too.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
