“Finally, we found someone who said, ‘We know how this can be done.’”ĭesigners like commando for runway fashions because the underwear is designed not to show - that is, no panty lines - and models say they like it because it’s comfortable. “I still didn’t know a whole lot about fabric,” she says. So when O’Brien went to New York to talk to fabric manufacturers about her idea, a lot of them already knew her and were willing to help. “Everyone said, ‘You can’t do that.’”Īt the time, commando, founded in 2003, was making takeouts, a popular line of “removable cleavage” accessories that came packaged in Chinese-food-type containers. “I said, ‘Why do we have to finish on the ends? Why can’t we just raw cut it?’” she says. “I couldn’t understand it: We care so much about what we wear for lipstick, what we wear for shoes, for accessories - but underwear seems to be an afterthought.”Įver the go-to girl for friends who didn’t know what to wear under light dresses, O’Brien started to work on a book about underwear, only to realize she’d rather participate in the solution than write about the problem. “I always wanted underwear that didn’t dig into me.
She got her start in invisible underwear almost by accident. She’s one of few lingerie designers to receive the honor, and so far the only Vermonter. “But our company is based here because I grew up here, I love living here and there is a wealth of talented people here.”Īs she prepares to head south for several days of back-to-back Fashion Week runway shows to premiere the spring 2013 collections, O’Brien has just been nominated to serve on the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). “People are surprised to find us in Vermont,” says O’Brien, a former PR executive from South Burlington who moved back with her husband, Ed Biggins, a former investment banker, after 10 years in New York. There, the world’s most popular designers and models are so enamored of her products that, O’Brien says, one of them told her recently, “We can’t have Fashion Week without commando.” It would make more sense for the owner and designer of commando - which makes “invisible” undergarments - to live near New York’s garment district. Life might be easier for Kerry O’Brien if she didn’t live in Vermont.
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