Spanx who invented

I spent five years interviewing some of the world's most successful people for my book, "Getting There: A Book of Mentors," and had the honor of interviewing Blakely herself. It was an inspiring conversation and she offered so many pearls of wisdom. But what I really wanted to know at the time was how she got to where she is today — a powerful female entrepreneur who started a multimillion-dollar shapewear company.

For as long as Blakely could remember, she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and become a trial attorney. She debated in high school and continued to in college, where she also majored in legal communications. Devastated yet determined, she signed up for an LSAT prep course, studied her "a-- off" in her own words , took the test again But [Disney World] only auditioned people for the character roles every once in a while, so in the meantime I got a job at Epcot.

When she finally tried out to be Goofy, Blakely was told she was "too short to wear the costume. And so, Blakely continued to wear her brown polyester spacesuit and put people on Epcot rides. Still without much direction, Blakely got a job at a local company selling fax machines door-to-door. Now get out there and sell. I had to percent drum up my own leads. Before her 30th birthday, Blakely made the very first prototype for what would soon after become Spanx.

This milestone helped the brand take off and provided Blakely with the opportunity to work on Spanx full-time from onward. Forbes touted Blakely as the youngest self-made female billionaire in Recently, Blakely has regained her billionaire status following a deal to sell the majority of her shapewear company to private equity giant Blackstone. Despite the colossal success of Spanx, its growth had been hindered by the pandemic as well as increasing market competition.

I will remain a significant shareholder and continue to help the business fulfill its greatest potential, as well as continue to fulfill my greatest passion—elevating women. Feel free to email me at editorial. Who Is Sara Blakely? By Rachel Makinson On Oct 28, You might also like More from author. 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.