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MISSION Lisette L MontrĂŠal inspires women to explore and celebrate their own style in all aspects of their lives. Our vision is to offer a wide range of well designed clothing for every women. We encourage women to cultivate not just individual style, but the success that comes with personal power. We dedicate ourselves to the production of quality products and are proud to produce the majority of our garments in Canada.
LISETTE LIMOGES CO-FOUNDER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR For over a decade Lisette Limoges has been designing women’s pants with a purpose: crafting that perfect fit for all women and all body types. The goal was to leave no body behind and she has done just that. Lisette’s career in fashion began on the sales side, but she yearned from the outset to do much more. “The origin of Lisette L Montréal came from my desire to create a fashion line for women where the fit came first. Of course we wanted to make sure we were creating styles that were on-trend, but we wanted pants that fit the right way”, says Limoges. “I believe today we have created a line that fits women of all ages and all lifestyles.” Lisette L pants are known to flatter women of every body type, shape and size. They are designed with a tummy control mesh on the inside and come in a variety of colors and patterns. The pants are sold in fine boutiques and department stores across Canada, United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Liset e Limoges
F E AT U R E D I N
THE GLOBE AND MAIL IS FEATURED IN
2016
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 2015
INNOVATORS: A SERIES
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
A PERFECT FIT How Oprah’s approval gave pants maker a leg up driven his car south from Montreal to Florida in the hopes of drumming up more business for his wife’s creation. He ended up getting more than he bargained for.
Lisette Limoges doesn’t just wear the pants in her family. She reinvents them. Using a similar technique employed for the making of women’s bathing-suit bottoms, the Montreal-based fashion entrepreneur has revolutionized pullon pants, making them fit and flatter any body type – including Oprah Winfrey’s.
“We had no idea she was going to do that,” exclaims Limoges, wide-eyed as she describes that first big break. “Our website was flooded with so many people trying to place orders that it crashed.” After Gifford, Winfrey is the latest celebrity to champion the pants. There may be more.
That’s right: The queen of daytime TV is a huge fan of Lisette-L pants. Over the past 12 months, she has worn a pair for three separate covers of her immensely popular O Magazine, the latest being the current February issue. In October, Winfrey invited the Quebecborn Limoges to join her on the recent round of her The Life You Want tour, which attracted up to 22,000 people at a time in cities like Atlanta, Newark, Miami and San Jose. Her other guests included U.S. inspirational speaker Iyanla Vanzant, pastor Rob Bell, Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert and philosopher Mark Nepo. But Limoges, also the only Canadian in the group, was the only one invited to be part of the travelling O Magazine lounge, a large tent in which 250 pairs of Lisette-L pants were given away to participants who had waited up to 10 hours to get inside. Winfrey revved the crowd up when in one stadium-sized venue, she took to the stage to announce that she was wearing Lisette-L pants, calling them the most comfortable pair of pants she has ever worn. You can’t buy that kind of publicity. “It’s been amazing,” says Limoges with her accented English on a recent visit to Toronto where the stylish grandmother of two was herself wearing a pair of her pants: a streamlined faux black snake skin style she had paired with a chic black shearling vest and high heels, her golden blond hair cut stylishly short.
Limoges is aware that Hillary Clinton also owns a pair: “I just don’t have a photo of her in them, yet,” she says. grown 900-per-cent thanks in large part to Winfrey’s enthusiastic support. Staffing has also has increased – from 5 to 65 employees – as has the number of accounts, from 300 in Canada to more than 5,000 stores across North America. New markets include Australia and New Zealand, where sales have doubled over the last year, and largely as a result of the O factor. “They love Oprah in Australia,” Limoges says. “They see what she is wearing and they want to wear it, too.” The recently launched e-commerce site is also booming, especially in the U.S., adds husband and business partner, Neil Small. He and Limoges together launched Lisette-L in 2003 after working together for 30 years as sales reps for other fashion companies. Their retail clients had always asked them for a perfect pair of pants. When they couldn’t find it, they decided to create it themselves. “From the knee up all the pants are the same. From the knee down, they are wider, shorter, skinnier, depending on the style,” says son David Small, who today also works for the business. He and his father oversee sales while Limoges takes care of the pants, each season producing a diversity of styles, from boot cut to capri, which she embellishes with a signature D-ring attached to the front of the pants, just below the waistband. “I want my name on the outside of the pant, not hidden,” Limoges explains. “I want it to be something people notice as being Lisette-L.” If the goal is brand recognition, then the formula is working. “We used to have five meetings, if we were lucky, over two days of appointments with editors in New York,” her son adds. “Now we have between 25 and 35 each business trip, and we are talking to Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, More and Redbook, all the leading women’s magazines.”
“To say Oprah’s interest in us has been a game-changer would be an understatement, ” she recalls.
The tsunami of interest in Lisette-L has risen with Oprah, but it started four years ago when another popular TV personality, Kathie Lee Gifford, went unsolicited on NBC’s Today show and held up a pair of Lisette-L pants to the camera, declaring to millions of viewers that they “fit like a dream.”
Sales for the made-in-Canada brand have
Gifford had found her Lisette-L’s by chance in a Key Largo boutique after Neil Small had
Other high-profile customers include Ivana and Ivanka Trump, a mother and equally fashion-loving daughter combo who represent a growing trend with regards to Lisette-L pants, which increasingly are appealing to consumers of all ages, young women and mature women alike. “It’s interesting,” Limoges comments. “Because I originally made them for the older ladies, the ones who needed a little extra coverage, a little extra comfort in their dressing. It is why they are pull-ups, to make them easy to put on. But what has happened is that their daughters have tried them on, loving the fashion, and once they have tried them they love them. They don’t want to wear anything else because they look so good on.” Priced between $90 and $135, and ranging in size from zero to 16, the wash-andwear pants look so good on for a reason. Each pair is constructed with a hidden tummy panel that smooths and enhances a woman’s natural curves, making her look fantastic no matter what her shape. “When a lady sits down in a pull up, usually you can see everything you don’t want to see,” says David. “But ours are designed to sit higher on the body and so it hides. It keeps everything in, the muffin top, the tummy....” His mother, sitting next to him, nods her head in agreement. “My big message,” she interjects, “is you have to feel good about yourself. Try on my pants and you will feel good, and look good, on the outside. I can promise you that.”
By Anne MArie ChAker
Designers are rethinking pants. Varying measurements in hips, stomach and waist combined with different heights make slacks tricky to fit right. Montreal-based Lisette L has developed a pull-on pant with a hidden mesh “flaterie panel” that trims the tummy. It calls its fabric “magical Lycra,” made of 77% rayon, 20% nylon and 3% Lycra that weighs 275 grams per square meter. “The weight is very important,” says head of research and development Yvonne Lamers. “At 225 grams and under you’ll see cellulite bumps,” she says. The brand has recently introduced a ponte knit-a fabric know for its stretch and ability to keep its shape. “With the strength of yoga wear, we felt a knit is important,” says Ms. Lamers. Its ponte knit is a blend of viscose, nylon and elastene. The fabric’s structure and drape also makes it versatile and has allowed the brand to expand from pants to include jackets and skirts.
IN THE NEWS
ALL IN THE
FAMILY Lisette-L Montreal is getting a leg up on the competition thanks to a series of high-profile endorsements from celebrities like Oprah
By Janet Wilson Photographe: Ashley Fraser After 30 years of working in the fashion business, Lisette Limoges and her husband, Lisette Limoges and her daughter, Kathryne Small Neil Small, created their first pant in 2003. Their children, David and Kathryne, also work for the booming company.
N
eil Small’s face beams as he lifts up the plastic covering on a smart pair of Lisette-L Montreal golf pants ready to be shipped off to a tony boutique in Florida, California or Texas. Business is booming for the Montreal company founded by Small and his wife, Lisette Limoges, the creative designer behind their slimming pullon pants worn by celebs like Taylor Swift, Hillary Clinton, Ivanka Trump and Oprah Winfrey. Sales for their golf collection are brisk — especially in the United States with the affluent gatedcommunity crowd. “Our golf division now takes up a whole floor in our warehouse,” Small says. Hundreds of pairs of pants, shorts, capris and skirts in a range of colours and patterns for spring 2016 hang neatly in rows awaiting shipment. On a recent visit to their showroom, buyers from Boca Raton, a golf and beach mecca in Florida, were in town for the day placing orders. With 65 employees, Lisette-L’s sprawling 60,000 square-foot headquarters on Chabanel Street in Montreal’s garment district, is a hive of activity with a design team, patternmakers, sales and administrative staff and sewers. As their business expands, so too does their office space, which has gobbled up four floors in the building. While all of the work is done in Montreal, some of the sewing has been contracted out to other local businesses. “It’s hard to anticipate the future when you look at other great companies that are experiencing difficulties like The Gap, Mexx, Jacob and Le Château. But we have had a huge growth spurt in Canada this year and our sales in the U.S. have increased month by month,” says Small, adding that their pants are in more than 5,000 stores in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. “We’ve always gone with our gut and it seems to be working. We’ve certainly achieved a lot of media attention.” Indeed, they have. A large board hanging on an office wall boasts numerous clippings of their
clothing in magazines like People, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, More and Woman’s Day. The board is replenished with new clippings every couple of months and online at Lisettel.com. Limoges and Small have become savvy in getting traction for their company and were in New York City earlier this month visiting a host of magazine editors and various television stations to promote their brand. With 90 new styles for fall and 80 fresh designs for spring 2016, there’s plenty to talk about. Collections cover the gamut from golf and tennis wear (launched in January 2014) to stylish pants and eye catching leggings in a variety of lengths, hues, prints and patterns. The slimming Lycrablend fabric features a wide stretch waistband and an inner control tummy mesh — goodbye, muffin top — which is winning over women of all sizes, shapes and age. “My mother and I can literally wear the same pants,” says Kathryne Small, an Air Canada flight attendant who lives in Toronto, but works regularly for the family business. The two are teaming up on a mother/daughter tour this month through various Canadian retail markets to showcase the brand’s versatility. “The theme is that you can raid your mother’s wardrobe. We can both rock the same pants. But dress them up with different shoes and tops and they are appropriate for any age,” says Kathryne, who got married in August. Her brother, David Small, who has two young daughters, works full time for the company. “I probably spend more time here than at home,” he says. “I love the work and am excited to see what’s next.” What’s next is more experimentation with colour and patterns and the recent launch of an oversized and tall line. The company is also adding more men’s clothing and garments such as blouses, a boyfriend blazer and a little black dress. Pants retail from $110, skirts $105 and jackets from $220. An affable couple, Limoges and Small are big on giving back to community and have donated thousands of pants to charities and women’s shelters. Married for 38 years, the couple met at a night club in Old Montreal when they were 23 years old. “It was on a Friday the 13th,” chuckles Limoges, adding that their romance is still going strong. For 30 years they worked as sales associates for other
Quebec fashion companies before taking the plunge and designing their first pant in 2003. After years of hitting the road and marketing their pants directly to boutiques and small retailers throughout North America, they got their first big break in 2011 when Kathie Lee Gifford of NBC’s Today show told millions of viewers that Lisette-L pants fit like a dream. Peter Simons, president of the Simons retail chain, first met Small as he was learning the ropes in the fashion industry in his early 20s. “I’m so, so happy for their success. They perserved in this industry and are doing well. I’m proud to carry their line in my stores.” Their biggest champion to date has been Oprah, whom they credit as their company’s game changer. The media personality and magazine owner, who is estimated to be worth $3 billion, has a wardrobe full of their pants and has worn them several times in her O, The Oprah Magazine, including on three covers in the past 18 months causing sales to soar. A year ago, the couple was invited by Oprah to join her eight-city U.S. tour called The Life You Want, an inspirational roadshow with speakers such as Deepak Chopra and author Elizabeth Gilbert. As one of the event’s sponsors and the only Canadian company, they were able to showcase their brand in a marketplacestyle tent visited by thousands of attendees. At one stop, Oprah announced to the crowd that she was wearing Lisette-L pants, saying they were the most comfortable pants she owned. To top it off, the couple was invited to an intimate luncheon last spring at Oprah’s Californian estate. Oprah mementos and framed photographs of the star can be found on display cabinets and hanging on office hallways. “It’s been an incredible experience,” Limoges says. “Oprah and her whole team are downtoearth and just wonderful people.” Neil Small said the company is poised to enter other markets that they haven’t tapped into yet. “There’s a lot on our plates right now, so it’s one step at a time. Our next goal is to bring our products to Saudi Arabia.”
J6
ottawacitizen.com/life
SaTurday, MarCh 15, 2014
The OTTawa CiTizen
fashion
HoT panTs What happens when oprah falls in love with your designs? if your name is Lisette Limoges, you get a leg up on the competition, as JaneT Wilson discovers.
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lisette l black and white dot style pants.
alk about a ringing endorsement. When one of the most famous people on the planet wears your pants not once but several times, you’ve got to know that business will be brisk. Looking chic and sporty, Oprah Winfrey has graced two covers (October 2013 and March 2014), as well as several inside pages of O, The Oprah Magazine, rocking pants designed by Lisette Limoges and her husband Neil Small. The Montreal-based company known as Lisette L is operated by Limoges, her husband, son David and daughter Kathryne (based in Toronto), and a team of about 55 employees. Their tag lines: fit to flatter and Lisette L pants are great for anytime and anywhere, is certainly catching on with celebs and those who follow them. Lisette L has become a media darling with top fashion magazine editor’s picks in Good Housekeeping, More, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar and Glamour. The pants hit the big time when NBC’s The Today Show co-hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb held a pair up saying that the pants “fit like a dream.” For 30 years, Lisette and Neil worked as sales agents representing other fashion companies. After repeatedly being told by consumers and store owners that they wanted a pant with a perfect fit, they decided to design their own. In 2003, they started their own company with the intent of making a pant that would appeal to female baby boomers. “Well, now that Taylor Swift is said to love our pants, we are serving many generations
oprah winfrey is sporty and chic in lisette l pants on the march 2014 cover of o, the oprah magazine.
from mothers to daughters and granddaughters. The tummy control waistline is a hit as it doesn’t cut off your waist when you sit down. The pants wash and pack well, too,” Lisette says. Three years ago, they decided to try their luck in the U.S. Neil drove to Florida, opened an account and went door to door selling the pants to various boutiques. Their son went to California and did the same thing. “We didn’t know that Kathie Lee Gifford was going to talk about our pants. She pulled them out and put them on oprah winfrey has 10 her desk and said they pairs of lisette l pants, were the best pants says lisette limoges. she’d worn. She bought them at a boutique in Key Largo. We didn’t gift them to her. There was so much traffic to our website right afterward that it crashed.” This was the tipping point for the brand. Stores in Florida and California that had them in stock sold out immediately. NBC had so many calls that the TV hosts talked about the pants again the next day on their show. “It was such a chain reaction,” says Lisette. “For a family-run business, we’re really so fortunate. We were in 300 stores three years ago and now we’re up to 5,000 in the U.S.” The pants, which retail for $100 and go up to size 16, come in numerous styles (capri, boot cuts, skinnies, flairs and straight), colours and prints, including polka dots, gingham, medallions and leopard. “We are being very careful with our brand. We’ve been offered to be in multiple stores, but we have a great relationship with boutiques. This is the culture of our brand. We want to stay true to who we are,” Lisette says. While the past few years have been a whirlwind, one of the highlights was having lunch with Oprah in November. “After we were introduced, she remarked upon how much she loved our pants. She said that at her age, she does what she wants and wears what she likes. I think she’s got about 10 pairs now.” In the Ottawa area, the pants can be found at Shepherds Fashions, Escape Clothing, Joanne’s Fashions, O Feminin in Gatineau and online at Lisettel.com. OTTAWA CITIZEN
the lisette l pants come in a variety of styles, colours and lengths.
the family-run business is based in montreal. Daughter Kathryne and son David work for their parents, neil Small and lisette limoges.
this style of lisette l pants extends right down to the ankle for a long, sleek look with sexy studs for an added wow appeal.
‘Well, now that Taylor swift is said to love our pants, we are serving many generations from mothers to daughters and granddaughters. The tummy control waistline is a hit as it doesn’t cut off your waist when you sit down. The pants wash and pack well, too.’ liSette limogeS Designer
IN THE NEWS
“
Kathie Lee and I are crazy about these pants that work on everybody. They’re called Lisette Pants, and guess who came: Lisette! They are fairly priced, they are unbelievable, they look good on everybody! They’re the most comfy pants in the world! I live in them! And they have a stretchy waist – no pockets, no zippers, no buttons, they just come up perfectly!
”
Hoda Kotb (Today, NBC, October 2014)
H O DA KOT B
K AT H I E L E E G I F F O R D
IN THE NEWS
CELEBRITIES DR. OZ
M A R T H A S T E WA R T
R I TA W I L S O N
VENUS WILLIAMS
Spring 2020 collection
Emma Knit #171141
Barbados print #64201
Emma Knit #171144
Kampala print #646729
Ta y l o r B l o u s e #463218
Nautical Garden #64201
Amalfi Stripe #653139
Flattery Denim #607918
Aurora Silk #659147
Sammy Denim #626932
Emma Knit #171118
Fun Party Print #618936
Les Agences Lisette Limoges inc. US: 866.385.5888 C a n a d a : 8 7 7. 4 8 5 . 1 2 2 2 9 2 5 0 Av d u P a rc # 3 0 0 Montreal, QC H22 1Z2