leading the conversation the exchange. september 2014

COVER GIRL founder in her ofce. Lining the wall behind her are 120 Life magazine covers.

TRACKED SARA BLAKELY The self-made billionaire behind Spanx, which launches a line of jeans this fall, is an inventor at heart.

BY CHRISTOPHER ROSS PHOTOGRAPHY BY AUDRA MELTON

PANX FOUNDER Sara Blakely, 43, stands atop Oprah hailed it as one of her favorite products of the with scribbles, notes and inspirations. a three-story construction site in ’s year in 2000, causing demand to explode among The mother of three has a salesman’s facility uptown Buckhead district, surveying the city’s middle-aged housewives and red-carpet starlets with first names and an almost clinical ease about skyline and blinking in the hot afternoon sun. alike, and leading to the creation of a full line that assessing other women’s bodies, fixing an SBy February, this will be the view from the company’s now encompasses more than 200 garments, from unabashed stare on the behind of a model as she rooftop garden, and the cavernous floors below—com- body shapers and bras to menswear and, beginning walks by. “I look at butts all day,” she says. “That’s prising 86,000 square feet—will be the site of Spanx’s this fall, jeans. normal. I don’t get in trouble with HR.” The com- new ofces, selected to accommodate Blakely’s staf Though she leads a company valued at more than pany channeled its founder’s easygoing relatability, of 160. Men in hard hats and yellow vests scale the a billion dollars, Blakely still primarily identifies leading customers to develop an emotional attach- scafolding, consult blueprints, maneuver cranes. She as an inventor. Since she does her best thinking in ment to the product and eliminating the need for turns and smiles. “All this because I didn’t like how my the car (the idea to call her product Spanx came to advertising. Blakely estimates that roughly three butt looked in white pants,” she says. her while she was stopped at a red light), she often times a day a woman on the street will recognize her Blakely’s success story began in 1998, when, as extends her normal six-minute morning commute and flash her Spanx, a gesture that has become a a door-to-door fax-machine salesman fed up with to an hour, driving aimlessly to allow her mind kind of secret handshake among the brand’s adher- bunching pantyhose, she created a proprietary slim- to wander. Wherever she goes, she carries a large ents. It’s a testament to the fact that in America, a ming version designed to lie smoothly under pants. spiral-bound Mead notebook, compulsively filling it little winking vanity can go a long way. >

WSJ. MAGAZINE 111 THE EXCHANGE TRACKED 11 questions asked by her son’s prekindergarten class- mates before they correctly guessed her identity (she was wearing a disguise).

$250 to trademark the word Spanx in 2000. 1 1 : 0 3 a.m. She changed the ks to an x at the last minute. Hops into her Toyota minivan to drive to the ofce. The vehicle is the object of some derision at work, but her son is a fan. 200 people waiting in line at 10 a.m. for the 10:27 a.m. opening of the stand-alone Spanx store Gets ready (of which there are eight nationally) to enter her 5-year-old son Lazer’s in Tampa, FL, this summer. classroom at the Galloway School as a disguised “mystery reader.” 4 12:12 p.m. days Time Blakely’s husband, the rapper and Queries a model entrepreneur , spent in a about the fit of the jeans the wheelchair after running more than 100 company is launching consecutive miles for charity. this fall. At left, doodling in her notebook. 93 Age of Blakely’s grandmother, who still wears Spanx and is especially a fan of the “Bra-llelujah.” 60 countries where Spanx are sold worldwide, including China, Italy and United Arab Emirates. 8 p.m. 1:05 p.m. minutes 2:45 The typical length of Blakely’s stand-up Takes a tour Inspects routine when she was an aspiring comedian of the construction site the new ofce mascot, before she started Spanx. for Spanx’s new Atlanta the afectionately nick- ofces with project named “Panty Lion” manager Robert Mills. (held here by a colleague). $24 million Amount the Sara Blakely Foundation has donated to support education and female entrepreneurship.

5:24 p.m. Drinks at Yebo 2 with a few of her best girlfriends; Blakely ideas has a margarita. Chevy Arnold, on the for her next inventions: lipstick that stays far left, was Spanx’s first customer. on and comfortable high-heeled shoes. š

112 WSJ. MAGAZINE