Flipping our idea of fashion, Norfolk woman's business is riding high

If a person named April Spring were anything other than spunky and full of reinvigorating ideas, it would be like a chilly, windy day in July. Unnatural.

But April Spring, the designer from Norfolk, is true to her name.

She will not give an idea time to turn cold.

Since we last told you about her Foxers lingerie brand in November, as she prepared for an inaugural appearance at Virginia Fashion Week, the company has hit the big time and jumped from sales online and in boutiques to its first department store chain, Dillard’s, with a launch tentatively set for Nov. 10 at selected stores nationwide. The Foxers brand has gotten a patent. Then, too, there’s the major licensing deal with the Lingerie Football League to become its exclusive outfitter. Spring has been personally dyeing the fabric at home on her stove.

Man, what is it with these drawers?

In 2005, while dining with her husband at a cafe in Malaysia, Spring had the mavericky idea of taking the waistband of men’s boxers and melding them with thongs, boy shorts or lace boxers. Her husband wasn’t sold on the concept.

“He said, 'Put those panties away and make those blouses everybody wants,’” Spring says.

Still, Spring, who already had been making evening gowns and daywear for private clients, believed she was on to a good thing.

“I wanted it to look like a grandfather’s old boxer. The top of the boxer always sticks out, and it’s OK.” (Shucks, at $24.99 for a pair of her panties, somebody, somewhere had better see ’em.)

Spring and her husband also coined the name “B-string” because their Malaysian friends almost exclusively thought of thongs as the between-the-toe sandals. You get it: boxer plus G-string.

Almost from the moment the idea was conceived, the pace has been like turning out flapjacks at a breakfast diner.

“As soon as I get an idea, I usually jump at it right away,” says Spring, 48. After sewing a few mocks of the lingerie to see if her designs actually would work, she incorporated her business.

The name Foxers is a fluke. Spring had wanted the name BoxHers, but it was taken. After thinking up and checking out name after name after name, Spring began losing faith that she and husband Alex Emmerman would ever come up with something catchy. Then, she says, a man’s voice, loud and clear in her sleep, told her to name the brand Foxers. She thought that name surely was spoken for, but when morning came and her husband did a patent and trademark search – voila! – the name was hers.

As much as Spring liked to design and sew, she’s a business and finance major with a degree from Florida Atlantic University and 13 years experience in investor relations. She knew she had to first get the business framework in order.

Not long after she birthed the idea, her husband’s job at Motorola led to relocation in Florida, where she worked on marketing samples for her product. When Emmerman saw that people were going ga ga over the first 300 prototypes, he was totally on board. By February 2007, the couple was back in Hampton Roads, and Spring set up an office and warehouse in two small, side-by-side storage units in Suffolk.

Many a person would have lost steam by now because of all the moving, but Spring is not many people.

She launched Foxers on the Web in late April 2007, and in 60 days she had landed her product in 60 stores nationwide with the help of one sales representative.

The first shipment from the Malaysian manufacturer was 2,800 undies, which sold out by mid-October last year.

Spring soon found that her operation was getting too big for her britches. She set up a larger distribution warehouse in Suffolk and moved her headquarters to an unassuming business office on 21st Street in Norfolk.

At least it looks unassuming from the outside. Inside, bolts of bright fabric, underwear hanging on a line strung across an office, photos of models and racks and bins of clothing signal that fresh ideas sprout in this space.

Spring goes back and forth with ease from sketch book to conference calls to business plans to yapping it up with her staff (which includes sister Susie Plumlee, her vice president of customer relations). Spring comes across as having been in the fashion business for a long time.

That’s true, sort of. Aside from growing up sewing alongside her mom, she worked for Saks Fifth Avenue when she was younger, and it was at Saks that she learned the value of building clientele in layers.

“Everything I’ve done in my past I’m using now in my company.” Spring says the company is about six months away from racking up a million dollars in sales.

She takes advantage of being where the big names are. She did a celebrity gifting at the Jingle Bowl in New York City last year where stars included Timbaland, Alicia Keys and The Jonas Brothers. Word about Foxers then seemed to spread like wildfire. She also did gift bags for the artists who didn’t win at this year’s Grammys, and she did gift bags for Celebrity Moms ’08 for Mother’s Day. Foxers undies have been featured on “Today.”

Counted among Foxers fans are The Backstreet Boys, “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks and Beyoncé, who was featured wearing the undies in the March issue of InTouch magazine.

Dag, is everybody wearing Foxers?

Count me among those caught up. When I saw the lime-green striped banded boy short and matching bra, I hadn’t felt so electrified since I got a pair of Wonder Woman Underoos in the fourth grade. I’ve been buying Hanes boxers for a while because of their casualness, but the Foxers boy shorts combine the laid-back feel with a fabulous fit and flair. They give you a tomboy-vixen vibe.

Foxers customers range from age 7 to 70, and they include Spring’s mom. I surely would have gotten a kick out of putting a few Foxers on my late neighbor Miss Mary’s clothesline to replace her granny panties.

Foxers fashion has expanded to include tops, swimwear, men’s undies, leggings and outerwear. Foxers also has licensing agreements with several school and sports team franchises (Virginia Tech was the first). It also can take custom branding orders, as with the military.

Foxers, in spite of its initial focus, covers a lot of ground.

So back to my initial question: What is it with these drawers?

There is something rejuvenating about taking the tried-and-true and letting it blossom into something new.

It’s called Spring.