For Fashion Forms of Ventura, the Product Is Support
When it comes to secrets, Victoria has nothing on Ann.
With Victoria’s catalogs in every mailbox and stores in every mall, that ubiquitous peddler of frilly underthings is as discreet as a red frock at a tea party.
But not Ann Deal. Quietly, ever so tastefully, in Ventura’s own backyard, the founder of Fashion Forms is giving the big lingerie manufacturers a run for their money, yet few locals know she’s here.
The North Carolina transplant is indeed here, however, in offices and a warehouse on Palma Drive with $50 million in annual sales and 80 regular employees.
That’s small change compared with Victoria’s Secret, Maidenform and Warners, but the business is growing. And in lingerie, size doesn’t always matter. Fashion Forms sets lingerie trends, industry experts say, with products ingenious enough to catch big-name bra companies’ attention.
The privately held company’s adhesive bra--Breast Petals--and its Water Bra and other products are in Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Robinsons-May and Nordstrom. The company also quietly supplies private-label versions of its Water Bra to Frederick’s of Hollywood and other chains.
“Fashion Forms is just a tiny, tiny company, a small portion of the market,” said Liz Dixon, merchandise manager for intimate apparel and hosiery at Bloomingdale’s. “However, where she really wins a lot of points is she has phenomenal items.”
Take, for example, Fashion Forms’ Breast Petals. Placed strategically, the tiny daisies of surgical tape can render a smooth silhouette without the need for a full bra.
With the popularity of spaghetti-straps and tube shirts, Breast Petals are the right product at the right time, Dixon said, and they sell “amazingly well” at Bloomingdale’s.
Deal marvels at Fashion Forms’ growth rate--125% a year since 1993--but Dixon says that’s no surprise. What lifts and separates the small company is Deal herself. Statuesque, blond, and garrulous with a Carolinian drawl, Deal is as compelling as her products. Impeccably dressed and eager to chat about Fashion Forms, she breezes into meetings in full sail and buyers don’t stand a chance.
“She’s her own best marketer, without a doubt,” Dixon said. “That’s absolutely how she was able to get into a lot of the companies she’s in. But Bloomingdale’s only continues to do business with somebody if their items perform, and hers has.”
Deal’s real talent is following hunches no one else thought of, said Sheila Solomon, vice president of the Underfashion Club, an organization of lingerie manufacturers. Deal, she said, “gets a feeling and goes out on a limb.”
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Breast Petals were one such hunch. They are popular in Hollywood, where they can’t be seen on Cindy Crawford, Goldie Hawn, Michelle Pfeiffer and Dolly Parton. Fashion Forms has also supplied products to cast members of television shows “Xena,” “As the World Turns” and “Sex in the City.” Raquel Welch sent Deal a thank-you letter after trying the adhesive bra.
Deal said she inherited her business savvy. Her father was a salesman, and her brother is a successful electronics entrepreneur in North Carolina.
She became a lingerie designer inadvertently, starting 29 years ago as a book buyer, then a lingerie buyer in Atlanta.
Through her next job as a sales rep for lingerie company she met a Brazilian inventor trying to market an adhesive bra.
“I thought, ‘Well that’s an interesting kind of product, why don’t I figure out how to do this? “ she said, and ordered surgical tape samples from 26 companies to find the right ouch-less adhesive. The winner was a tape by 3M Corp., and she began marketing the predecessor to Fashion Forms’ adhesive bra.
In 1993, after moving to Ventura, she teamed with Kathleen Nadsady. They used $74,000 of Deal’s savings, much from her bra sales, and financial backing by Nadsady to start Ce Soir Lingerie Co., and its Fashion Forms line.
Nadsady is now the company’s president and chief financial officer. The lingerie is mostly manufactured in Asia, but distribution is handled through Ventura.
Deal’s best-known product has been the Water Bra, a water and glycerin oil-filled push-up bra with a more natural feel than conventional foam.
To make it, Deal found an inventor in Asia who balanced water and oil in a formula reasonably close to nature. Deal bought the rights to the fluid and its leakproof sack that “passes the hug test.”
Deal received a patent for the bra in January. When the bra hit stores in December 1997, it “blew off shelves,” Deal said. Imitators quickly came out with mock water bras, most filled with oil, including one briefly and inadvertently filled with flammable oil, but none sold as well as the original.
“They knocked off our style, but oil has no bounce,” Deal said. “Young girls like bounce.”
The bras were also spoofed on television. A segment of the sitcom “Will & Grace” featured a punctured water-filled bra spewing like a fire hose. David Letterman tried, unsuccessfully, to run over one with a truck.
More satisfying evidence of its success, Deal said, are letters from women who had undergone mastectomies, who thank Fashion Forms for an alternative to breast implants and uncomfortable prosthetics.
In May 1999, one competitor, $20-billion Sara Lee Corp., maker of the Wonder Bra, sued Deal’s company for trademark infringement, saying the names are too similar and that Fashion Forms should modify the Water Bra name.
Peggy Carter, spokeswoman for Sara Lee, said customers could have been confused.
“We are no different from any other corporation that has invested significant resources in a brand,” Carter said. “You must protect that investment and your position in the marketplace by protecting the trademark.”
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Deal said there’s no comparison between the two products in how they are marketed. They have different colored labels, and besides, she added, women are smart enough to know the difference between water and wonder.
Last month, the parties settled the suit in details neither will disclose.
With the suit behind her, Deal is concentrating on new products. This month, Fashion Forms launches a moldable whipped-silicone bra. An air bra hits stores this fall.
Until then she’ll spend what free time she has strolling Ventura beaches with her dog, a Maltese named Gucci.
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