A ‘Late Bloomer’

How an idea in the middle of the night led to a top-selling women’s clothing line.

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ABOVE: A tank dress from skinnytees.

PHOTO CREDIT t age 57, Linda Schlesinger-Wagner found herself divorced and caught up in the 2006 housing market collapse. “I was in the midst of a crisis, and my payment almost doubled,” the now 74-year-old recalls.

Instead of giving up, Schlesinger-Wagner pivoted. The Jewish entrepreneur sold a longstanding children’s knitwear business that she’d had for years to pursue an idea that came to her in the middle of the night, on an evening when she couldn’t sleep, for skinnytees — a women’s clothing company selling essentials like camisoles, that were both comfortable and stylish.

“I wasn’t a 25-year-old woman,” explains SchlesingerWagner, who had already worked in the apparel industry for more than three decades at the time. “I didn’t want to lean up or bend over and see skin.”

Rather than creating traditional women’s tops, she turned to longer, more flexible pieces that would work for women of all ages, especially busy women on the go. They were one-sizefits-most silhouettes, made out of smoothwear, and entirely seamless.

BUILDING A DREAM

However, Schlesinger-Wagner didn’t have the finances to bring the idea to life, so she borrowed $1,000 from a close friend and purchased one dozen tops in 10 colors from a contractor to make skinnytees a reality.

After the tops arrived, Schlesinger-Wagner took them to Impulse Clothing Boutique, a clothing shop in Brighton, Michigan, where she says she