Clothes are a 'modest' success

"We just barely started doing that, but we've decided to put a lot more focus on it," she said. "So you can expect to see them in a handful of stores in the next month or two." Rippy expects Internet sales to pick up in the near future as well.

"We're not going to market them on the Internet necessarily as modest shirts, just as long shirts that cover your tummy," she said. "So that's going to appeal to anyone who's just had a baby, anybody who has a job and wants to stay really professional and classy, so we just feel like the sky's the limit when it comes to selling them on the Internet."

As for her own storefront, Rippy said she currently lacks the capital, but is anxious to cater to customer needs.

"Obviously, we'd love to be able to provide as many options as we can when it comes to hip, modest clothing, so if that is in the future, I'd be really excited about that," she said. "We definitely see that as being a possibility, but you know, we just kind of take it one day at a time. It's growing so quickly, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves."

Part of the reason the shirts sell so well, according to Rippy, is that women of all ages and walks of life want to wear them.

"The cool thing about our product is we have 12-year-olds that love them and 65-year-old ladies that love them," she said. "It really appeals to every different age group."

Rippy said even if the shirts hadn't sold so well, she would have designed them just for personal use.

"I'm happy that everyone loves my product, but I do it because I'm excited about the shirts and I love to wear them myself," she said. "I'm not a clothing designer, so I didn't have big plans to provide a million different styles of clothes, but I just know that there are a few basic items that you needed in your wardrobe to make everything else possible. That was kind of my vision from the beginning, and it's really happening."

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E-mail: mdecker@desnews.com