Spanx.

Have you been to Spanx’s website? I was going to ask Sara Blakely if I could interview her about her story, but then I visited the About Us page on her site. And voila! There’s an interactive timeline of how Spanx came to be…Spanx.

Don’t believe everything you read–her timeline starts in 1998 with her cutting the feet of her stockings out and that very same year, she was reportedly granted a patent for Footless Body-Shaping Pantyhose. Patents take more than three days to get, let alone apply for…but generally-speaking, it’s a neat story and redirected my thanking-the-Spanx-Gods efforts.

Not that I have to wear Spanx or anything.