Lingerie Lady: Carole Hochman

GigisCloset.com carries Betsey Johnson Intimates and OnGossamer. Both on these lines are managed by Carole Hochman Design Group. I found this article about Carole Hochman in the March/April '08 issue of Pink Magazine. It is great to see pioneering women in the lingerie industry get credit. I thought it was interesting, so I decided to share. Article from Pink Magazine written by Kathryn Whitbourne.

In 1969, carole Hochman and 11 other fashion design students started internships at Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. "Everyone else got jobs in glamorous departments like evening gowns," Hochman recalls with a laugh, "while I got stuck in lingerie. I shed tears!"

That disappointment turned into her biggest opportunity. It started her on a course of designing lingerie under her own label and under license fir companies like Betsey Johnson, Ralph Lauren, Jockey and Oscar de la Renta. Today, as owner and creative director of Carole Hochman Design Group, she and her 180 employees ring up annual revenue of $160 million.

In the '60s, nightwear was billowy and demure. By the 1980s it had transitioned to silky and sexy. Yet Hochman was an untapped niche waiting to be filled. "I grew up wearing pajamas," she says. "I enjoyed designing the silky stuff, but that wasn't what I wore to bed. So I designed an all-cotton line. No one had done anything like that before." After Macy's placed an order for $250,000 in 1990, the new idea became a trend. "Now everyone does it," she says. Hochman attributes her company's success to being diversified. She is expanding the underwear section of her business, but she also notes that lingerie has morphed into lifestyle dressing. "Now, many women work at home and need clothes for that, or things to put on when they get home from the office," she says. "We address all these needs.

"Life is short. Wear pretty underwear.
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