When L.U.V. Director of Analytics Snigdha Sangisetti and Founder and CEO Erica Sullivan Feggeler began college at Virginia Tech they’d one thing in thoughts for his or her future. Sangisetti, a 2017 graduate of Rock Ridge Excessive College and the Academies of Science, deliberate to dive deeper into laptop science and information analytics. Feggeler, a Charlottesville native, deliberate to enter trend merchandising and design.
“I at all times beloved clothes and seeing retail do new and revolutionary issues,” Feggeler mentioned.
The 2 met at Virginia Tech in 2018 on the Collegiate Girls in Enterprise Membership and commenced working collectively in management positions throughout the membership.
“I bear in mind my first interview with Erica was in a neighborhood Blacksburg Starbucks the place we met for the primary time,” Sangisetti mentioned.
Within the spring of 2019, Feggeler discovered her mother had been recognized with malignant melanoma, inflicting her to dive head first into analysis on the pores and skin most cancers and to search for protecting clothes, altering the course she was on.
Feggeler had had her personal pores and skin most cancers scares at a younger age.
“I discovered an enormous hole available in the market for solar protecting attire designed for ladies that made ladies really feel assured and comfy,” she mentioned. “It was the proper alternative to resolve an issue and fill a necessity.”
Low UltraViolet clothes was based in December 2019, a web based clothes retailer geared towards ladies that focuses on UPF 50+ solar safety clothes.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and issues obtained a bit of loopy for the startup.
They launched their first product, a t-shirt with their brand and motto “Outshine pores and skin most cancers” in October 2020.
Erica mentioned it was all they might do as a result of they couldn’t get producers to do extra.
From there, the 2 labored by way of provide chain points and a number of other producers, designed clothes, gathered suggestions from prospects and created protecting athleisure and informal clothes for ladies.
Additionally they labored by way of being advised “no” lots as manufactures advised them they didn’t wish to make investments their time in a start-up firm.
“The producer we’re presently working with advised us no at first, however they ended up working with us as a result of we had been very decided and doubtless a bit of annoying,” she mentioned. “However we felt so passionately and strongly about these merchandise.”
L.U.V. Founder and CEO Erica Feggeler helps a buyer at a pop-up store.
Feggeler mentioned all the manufacturing is group pushed and designed as a result of they take polls with their prospects and use the suggestions to create and enhance their clothes.
“We take suggestions from in all places, pop-up retailers, in particular person, we’d have somebody say, ‘I like what you might be doing with this, do you have got it in lengthy sleeves?’ So, we’d create that.” Feggeler mentioned.
She mentioned they wished to maintain the colours easy and keep away from the “garish” patterns that had usually been related to solar protected clothes up to now.
“We made it our main goal to maintain it modern however versatile,” she mentioned, conserving in thoughts the ladies who would purchase the clothes.
“It’s informal, you’ll be able to put on it on a stroll, nevertheless it’s additionally extraordinarily versatile. You may layer our lengthy sleeve or brief sleeve shirts with a blazer or one in all our shawls to decorate it up,” Sangisetti mentioned.
Additionally they wished to maintain it inexpensive, itemizing objects from $28 {dollars} for a sun-safe shirt to $98 for one in all their largest promoting objects, the All-Star Tennis Costume.
“I used to be 23 once I began searching for solar protecting attire and I couldn’t discover something inexpensive in the marketplace. I couldn’t spend $150 or $200 for a gown. It was tremendous irritating, and I wished to seek out an inexpensive answer,” Feggeler mentioned.
“It’s not a luxurious to guard your pores and skin,” she added.
One other facet they wished for his or her model was longevity. They wished it to be worn, washed and worn once more and provide simply as a lot safety on day 10 or 30 because it had on day one.
Feggeler created the gown in 2022 when provide chain points had settled. She mentioned it’s a gown you’ll be able to put on anyplace, from the “board room to the board stroll.”
Feggeler designs the clothes, then takes her designs to Sangisetti who refines them.
“I at all times have these loopy concepts and the imaginative and prescient due to my background, then I take it to Snigdha who says issues like, ‘let’s transfer the collar up’ or ‘let’s add pockets.’ I see the massive image and she or he takes all of it and refines it,” Feggeler mentioned.
“We expect very otherwise. Erica’s background is trend design, and I work as an engineer full time and my diploma is in information analytics and computational modeling, however we come collectively and that’s the great thing about our background,” Sangisetti mentioned.
As we speak, Feggeler’s mother is prospering and on the point of meet her first grandchild.
Sangisetti and Feggeler work to be often called greater than only a clothes firm. They wish to be a help to different pores and skin most cancers survivors in addition to be an academic useful resource. They’ve partnered with the Melanoma Analysis Basis, a Washington, DC-based group working to eradicate melanoma. They host a weekly podcast and weblog with assets like dermatologists, connecting with different pores and skin most cancers survivors and schooling.
“It units us other than the remainder of the trade,” Sangisetti mentioned. “It didn’t occur by likelihood; it was a aware effort as a result of we take it very critically. The group you construct across the firm is what units you other than the others.”
The corporate’s subsequent large step is to make UPF 50+ clothes for kids.
L.U.V. does pop-up retailers all through the area with one deliberate for Ashburn someday this summer season. For particulars on the merchandise and upcoming pop-up store go to lowultraviolet.com.