Why is it called spanx

With a focus on solving wardrobe woes, the SPANX brand has grown to offer bras, underwear, leggings, active and more. In addition to keeping butts covered from Savannah to Singapore, SPANX also shapes the world by focusing on our mission: To help women feel great about themselves and their potential. Sara finds a mill to manufacture her "crazy idea" and SPANX footless body-shaping pantyhose are born!

Spanx wins a new fanbase with the launch of new mama products. Power Panties is invented, the first legband-free, mid-thigh hosiery shaper. Underwire, which quickly becomes the number one selling bra at all retailers.

Skip to main content. And the first, I met with several hosiery mills, and they all asked the same question. I'd walk in to the mill with my lucky red backpack, and they would always say, "And you are And they go, "And you're with They go, "And you're financially backed by And after cold-calling these mills for one week, I went back to Atlanta with no luck, and two weeks after I made that trip in person to all the hosiery mills, I got a phone call from one of the mill owners, and he said, from Charlotte, North Carolina, "Sara, I have decided to help make your crazy idea.

You should help this girl do it. As I'm making the prototype, which took me a year of working on it at night, and on the weekends, I learned so much as a consumer, that it never occurred to me. I kept talking to all these men, in the process of trying to make my product, and I remember thinking, "Where are the women? Why am I not speaking to any women here?

And I learned that when you're making When the industry was making the product, that they took the same size waistband and put it on every pair. And I also learned that they were putting a tiny rubber cord inside of our waistbands. Well, I immediately said, "Guys, this is not working. We have been miserable, we can't breathe, we're cutting our waistbands.

A small woman wants a small waistband and a large woman wants a large waistband, it makes sense. They had these plastic forms in their mill, and they would put the product up on the plastic form and they'd all stand back with their clipboards and go, "Yep, that's a medium. I said, "How do you know? If this plastic form's not telling you in the middle of the day, it started binding, or it rolled or it didn't fit right?

And to this day, all of the Spanx products are obviously tested and worn by me and all of my friends and family and I really appreciate that honest feedback, it's what makes us better than what had existed out there. I go back to the patent attorney and I say to him, "I have written the entire patent, I've drawn the abstract. My mom was an artist. She stood in our living room and drew the outline of my body, wearing the product 'cause you have to submit a picture with your patent.

And I don't know how to write the legal claims portion for a discounted price, will you please do it? You're so passionate about it. Ted was so southern. And when I say "so southern", I mean, real southern. So, Ted's talking to my attorney, I'm on the phone and Ted is explaining what's in the Spanx product. I literally was up all night thinking to myself, "How is there lacquer in this product? Can you spell lacquer? Okay, Lycra, thank you. So, I went on my friend's computer. She had just graduated from graphic design school, and for the next couple months, every day, I'd come home from work and I would develop the packaging.

I knew that I wanted my package to be red, and bold, and different because everything on the market was beige, and white, and gray, and had the same half-naked woman that had been on every package for the last 40 years. So, I said "I have no money to advertise. When I get my chance for this product to be on the shelf, it's gotta scream, "I'm new, I'm different, check me out.

I mean, it was revolutionary to make a bright red package. And then I also did a bold step, that no one had ever done before, and I put three animated, illustrated girls on the front that looked totally different and that was revolutionary at the time, as well. And I remember, after I finished this masterpiece of a product and the packaging for myself, I thought, "I love it, it's perfect.

It makes me feel like I'm buying a present for myself. I don't wanna feel dread when I go to buy hosiery or shape-wear. I wanna feel like I'm kind of treating myself to something", but I had no idea.

I thought, "Is there supposed to be something on this package for legal reasons?