If only Janet Jackson had known about this Minneapolis duo's line of little products that help women avoid overexposure. By SARA GLASSMAN Special to the Star Tribune
It all started with a gray sweater.
Marni Bumsted was struggling to keep the fabric between two strategically placed buttons on her stretchy cardigan to stay shut over a bra. When her friend Jennifer Kouba saw her dilemma, she grabbed the double-stick tape she uses in her job as a Los Angeles set stylist and closed the potentially embarrassing opening.
Bumsted was struck at that moment. "That was so brilliant," she said. "I was pondering, 'Why didn't I know about this?' Instantly, I thought that it would be a cool product to sell."
She thought about it for three years before teaming with a friend she met through their kids' gymnastics, Jane Dailey. Together they created Hollywood Fashion Tape -- 3- by 1½-inch strips of double-stick, clear medical tape that is hypoallergenic and safe for fabric, packaged in girly pink. A few strips can hold up a strapless dress, pin up a hem, close up wrap dresses and, of course, seal a gapping blouse or sweater.
Ten years after Bumsted's epiphany, the 49-year-old business partners have sold millions of the sticky strips. Hollywood Fashion Tape is available in more than 30 countries (it's huge in Australia). The beauty magazine Allure named it a "best product" in the October 2007 issue. And it's caught the attention of celebrities -- whose moments in the spotlight require paparazzi-foiling coverup. "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria's wedding planner called to get some for her wedding party. Teri Hatcher, Debra Messing and Joan Rivers are fans.
Bumsted, who grew up in St. Louis Park, left the United States at age 22 "for the water and warm weather" of the Virgin Islands. There, she owned a women's clothing store and met her husband, Steve. The two moved back to Minnesota in 1991, and she became a stay-at-home mom to two boys, with a side business designing custom window coverings.
Her friend, Dailey, originally from Faribault, Minn., was a stay-at-home mom, as well. In 2000, the two decided it was time to do something entrepreneurial.
"Who wants to clean their house that much?" Dailey said.
"It's boring to lunch," Bumsted added.
Their first step was coming up with a name for their product. They considered "Stay-puts" and "Social Security," but a friend's niece coined the winner, Hollywood Fashion Tape.
"It was a disaster," Dailey said. "We were a little surprised that we couldn't make money in our own back yard."
Dailey and Bumsted were ready to launch on Sept. 11, 2001. After the attacks that day, they decided to hold off until 2002, when they started primarily as an e-commerce site. While they attempted to place their product in boutiques, most of their efforts were thwarted, especially locally.Then they got their big online break. In August 2002, Hollywood Fashion Tape made the cyber-style version of a red carpet debut -- on Daily Candy. The trend-setting mass e-mail service, which recommends one new product every day, has a loyal following of people who aim to stay ahead of the crowd hunting for the next cool thing.
When Dailey got to the office (actually, Bumsted's living room) the day of the Daily Candy e-mail blast, she thought the computer was broken because there were so many inquiries. Since Bumsted was on vacation, Dailey called in her partner's mother and grandmother to help fulfill the overwhelming orders.
"It gave us worldwide exposure," Dailey said. Frantic brides began calling the office, willing to pay any price to have the tape overnighted. Suddenly, the demand for their product in stores across the country went up, too, including some of the hottest retailers on both coasts -- Nordstrom, Searle, Fred Segal, Kitson, BCBG and Patricia Field. Bumsted was almost tackled by security at Collette, the hip Paris boutique, for trying to take a photo of its in-store display.
"I thought [customers would] be 18 to 28, and they're 13 to 78," she said.The partners moved their offices from Bumsted's living room to Dailey's basement five years ago, making UPS trucks a neighborhood fixture. In 2006, they and their 10 employees moved to a real office space in northeast Minneapolis.
Security sells
Epitome in Edina's Galleria was one of the first local boutiques to not blow off the entrepreneurs. Hollywood Fashion Tape is currently placed near the register and samples are offered to skeptical customers. "We reorder 50 or so at a time and we sell it out in about a minute. People buy them over and over," said Epitome owner Irene Cooperman. "Almost everyone can use it. They feel more secure."
While the original tape remains their star seller, Dailey and Bumsted have expanded the line with products that make celebrity styling secrets available to anyone, including different shapes and sizes of the original tape, silicone nipple concealers and oil-blotting sheets for the face.
They plan to launch five to 10 more products in 2008, though they are tight-lipped about the details. "We have former manufacturers and distributors who are now competition," Dailey said
However, it is the simple idea that has stuck with them. "Even today, at trade shows when you explain it, the reaction is the same," she said. "The jaw drops, the mouth opens and they say, 'I've needed something like that.'"
STICKING TOGETHER
How Hollywood Fashion Tape’s founders expand new category
by Carla Solberg
WHEN PEOPLE THINK of women who need tape to keep their clothes on, the image of Jennifer Lopez at the 2000 Grammy Awards in a green Versace dress with a neckline that dipped well below her navel comes to mind.
It’s what many retailers were probably thinking about seven years ago as they showed the creators of Hollywood Fashion Tape the door, saying “that’s not our client.” It’s not what they’re saying now.
Hollywood Fashion Tape is little strips of two-sided tape that solve everyday wardrobe problems. Its No. 1 use is preventing between-button gaps on shirts and blouses but, as women all over the world can attest, it has plenty of other uses. From bra straps to shoe straps, Hollywood Fashion Tape helps women and their wardrobes stick together.
Owner Marni Bumstead got the idea when she was getting dressed one day, wrestling with a sweater that wouldn’t stay put. A girlfriend visiting from California, a stylist, solved the problem with a trick of the trade: two-sided tape.
As the one-time owner of a women’s clothing store, Bumstead knew she wouldn’t be the only one to appreciate this simple fashion solution.
After mulling the idea for years, she teamed up with her friend Jane Dailey, who has a background in marketing communications, and they set up shop in Bumstead’s living room.
Looking back at the seven years that have since passed, Bumstead and Dailey say that finding a manufacturer to make clear, hypoallergenic, medical grade, two-sided, adhesive tape in three-inch strips with peel-away backings was the easy part. The hard part was letting women know that the key to solving everyday wardrobe problems was just a peel and stick away.
New category
The tape was a new product, but it was also a new kind of product. “We believe we kind of started this fashion category,” Dailey says, noting that when Allure magazine gave the product an award in October 2007 it had to come up with a new category: Fashion First Aid. Marketing posed a challenge.
“In the beginning, designing the packaging to communicate what the product was, so people would know what it was, was a challenge because it was an unknown,” Bumstead says. “We knew we needed a strong image and a strong name.”
After brainstorming with family and friends they came up with the name Hollywood Fashion Tape, which they feel succinctly communicates the product’s purpose. The packaging, with pink accents, features a stylized illustration of a woman that evokes retro Hollywood glamour on the front and ten usage tips on the back including: “fix hems fast, close wrap skirts, keep scarves and accessories in place.” The tagline “Keep your clothes on!” is splashed on the pages of the company’s website.
They marketed to shops and trade shows and had some success with Internet sales and a few local boutiques, but their big break came with an August 2002 mention on Daily Candy, a trendspotting Web site that features a new hot item every day. Subscribers receive daily e-mails. Orders immediately started pouring in.
At the same time another strategy started to pay off. “Some of the best advice we got is that magazine editors are looking for things to write about and you make their job easier when you send them a product and a press release,” says Dailey.
One of the first publications to write about Hollywood Fashion Tape was Woman’s Day magazine. Response from an August 2002 article was huge and revealing. Up to that point, Bumstead and Dailey thought their demographic was women between the ages of 18 and 35. The response showed the audience was much broader. “It really opened our eyes to changes we needed to make,” says Dailey.
As they began marketing to a broader demographic they also began to broaden the product line. “We knew we couldn’t survive as a one SKU company for long. The natural progression was other products that solved fashion problems,” says Dailey.
There are now 13 items in the Hollywood line including strips in larger sizes and shapes, dress shields for underarm protection, breath mints, facial oil blotting sheets, clear bra straps and clear bra clips to pull straps into a racer-back style and out of sight.
There are also Hollywood No-Shows and Hollywood Cover Ups, which are disposable and reusable nipple concealers; Tag Tamers, to cover itchy tags; and Hollywood Extras, silicone breast enhancers that provide a more full-figured look when plopped into a bra.
All of the products are trademarked. All of the disposable, adhesive products are made in the United States and are fabric friendly and skin friendly. “Whenever we roll out a product, we want to make sure it’s the best,” says Dailey. Ten more products are on the way this year.
In 2006, the company developed a relationship with QVC, the home shopping channel. It’s been a particularly good medium, they say, because the products can be demonstrated. In addition, Hollywood products are available online and are sold in more than 20 countries including France where the trendy Parisian boutique Colette carries them. Locally, they are sold in more than 50 stores.
Epitome, in the Galleria in Edina, was one of the first shops to carry the product. “We carried little, dressy evening dresses,” says manager Cathy Johnson. “We had customers that worried about the front, or the straps sliding off, and it just fit the bill.”
Epitome started with the original product and now carries the whole line, Johnson says. “It has been fantastic. There is no age limit; the young girls come in at prom, the older women use them for sweaters and blouses,” she says.
Johnson estimates the store sells two dozen packages per month. Many women have the carrying tin, she says. Similar to a box of Altoids, the carrying tin is part of the Hollywood Nights package, which also includes breath mints, blotting sheets and a magnified compact mirror.
Customers keep the tin in their handbags and reload it with a fresh supply when they come in, she says. “It’s great because they just pick them up and go.”
Works in the heat
Karma, on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, has been carrying Hollywood products for a little over a year, says Jada Breuer, owner. Breuer says she knew the products existed but didn’t realize there was such a market for them until customers started asking about them.
Karma sells moderately priced to high-end clothing to customers who range in age from 25 to 55 years old, says Breuer. The store carries a half dozen Hollywood products. The best-selling item is the original, which most customers use to keep revealing shirts or dresses in place. “They tell me it even holds up in the heat,” she says.
“A lot of people have bought them for special occasions, like a wedding, when they don’t want something to fall down,” says Breuer. That was the case for Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria and her bridal party, who used Hollywood Fashion Tape to keep things in place on her big day.
Since its inception, Hollywood’s headquarters has migrated from Bumstead’s living room to Dailey’s basement to, in 2006, leased office space in Minneapolis. In retrospect, they think they may have waited a bit too long to move away from home.
Though they do not recommend that strategy to other entrepreneurs, there was a plus side. “It allowed us to grow our company without any debt,” says Bumstead.
The company now has 12 employees. Bumstead and Dailey say sales are in the “millions,” but won’t say which ones.Still ahead is a strategy to grow the international side of the business. The products are already very popular in Australia. But there are other continents where the market for fashion fixes is virtually untapped.
“We’re looking seriously at Asia,” says Dailey.
