Every once in a while, products come along that develop cult followings. In the athleisure world, for example, Lululemon and Vuori leggings come to mind.
And then there is shapewear – equally loved and loathed by women the world over. There is probably not a woman in America who doesn’t have at least one body-slimming garment in her underwear drawer.
Kim Kardashian’s Skims brand has been hogging most of the attention in this space since the company’s 2019 founding. But for the 20 years before Skims, there was Spanx.
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Spanx was founded in 2000, and the girdle-like, stretchy mid-thigh underwear quickly became a must-have for women everywhere. The product brought a modern sensibility to the kinds of waist-nipping and bust-enhancing undergarments that have been around since 1600 B.C.
Spanx founder Sara Blakely was (and is) a dynamic marketer whose company became so successful because she would not take “no” for an answer from luxury retailers like Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom. Then she caught Oprah’s attention, and the rest is “herstory.”
Spanx founder Sara Blakely moved from underwear to footwear
In a Forbes profile that appeared around the time Blakely became a billionaire thanks to Spanx, she shared why she was inspired to give shapewear an update. The reason was a common problem: the sweat-inducing, control-top pantyhose Blakely was forced to wear early in her sales career.
She also hated the way the seamed toe stuck out of open-toed shoes. At the same time, she noticed that the control-top pantyhose eliminated panty lines and says they made her body look firmer.
So when Blakely wanted to wear a pair of cream-colored pants to a party but didn’t want to see panty lines, she cut the feet off a pair of pantyhose and wore them underneath. Her DIY girdle didn’t show lines, she said, “but they rolled up my legs all night. I remember thinking, ‘I’ve got to figure out how to make this.’ I’d never worked in fashion or retail. I just needed an undergarment that didn’t exist,” she told Forbes.
Today Spanx is to shapewear what Band-Aids are to bandages: a brand that stands for the category. Blakely sold Spanx in 2021 for $1.2 billion and moved on to solving another problem: uncomfortable stilettos.
U.S. Patent office rejects application for the name ‘Sneex’
After spending nearly a decade developing a high heel that is marketed to be as comfortable as an athletic shoe, Blakely launched Sneex in 2024.
The shoe aims to make wearing high heels hurt less, partly by providing ample space in the toe box.
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As described by Footwear News, high-heeled pumps “often require wearers to balance with the middle of the foot not quite supported by the shoe, but Sneex is designed to come into contact with the entire sole.” Most heels also force the wearer to balance most of her weight on the ball of the foot and just 20% on the heel. Sneex, on the other hand, balance the weight 50/50.
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Whether Sneex will be the go-to solution for a common problem is still unclear, but the shoes do appear to have a handful of celebrity fans, including Gayle King and Reese Witherspoon. The shoes are not cheap; a pair starts at around $395. They are currently available in six different styles and around a dozen colors.
No matter how novel the shoe’s design, however, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected the Sneex trademark application because of a “likelihood of confusion.”
According to the USPTO, the name is too close to that of “Sneak,” another apparel company that sells clothing, footwear, and hats.
The USPTO blocks a trademark when it believes consumers could be confused about the source of the product.
Sara Blakely has three months from the date of the USPTO rejection (February 18, 2025) to respond.
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