By Ron Evans
I first learned of Charlotte Massey back around 2016 when I saw her incredible coffee paintings on exhibit at Lemolo in Wenatchee. Since then she’s remained on my radar via her social media posts and over the years I noticed a growing passion in hiking, rock-climbing and all around living the outdoorsy adventure life. “I have been on expeditions to Stok Kangri and Kang Yatse II in Ladakh, India, and up to 22,000 ft. on Aconcagua in Argentina.” Massey says.
More recently I noticed some rather eye-catching promotionals from her feed about a company that has designed the perfect “pee freely” pants. “I am a Co-Founder of SheFly Apparel, a patented line of women’s outdoor pants with flaps and zippers that allow women to relieve themselves without exposing skin to the elements or other people.” The busy entrepreneur says.
Now, as someone (be-penised) that’s been peeing freely in the woods (and pretty much anywhere else my whole life, I had to take a brief pause and acknowledge my pee privilege. I then reached out to Massey to learn more about this new product and its conception.
Tell us about the birth of SheFly Apparel and at what point did you get on board?
The idea for SheFly came from a summer my co-founder Georgia Grace Edwards spent working as a glacier guide in Alaska. She was one of only a few female guides and got frustrated with having to bare skin to the elements and other people while her male co-workers could do their business without exposing anything.
She shared that idea with my other co-founder, Bianca Gonzalez, who encouraged her to join a one month entrepreneurship class at Middlebury College (where we all went to school together). I joined the team before the end of that class and have been working on building SheFly ever since.
Where is the company based and how many people are part of it?
We are headquartered in Gunnison, Colorado. We currently have a team of 3 full time people (including myself and Georgia Grace), one person part time, one contractor, and two interns. I split my time between Gunnison and Seattle.
Charlotte Massey and Georgia Grace Edwards
Talk a little about how things went from seeing a need to having a concept to sliding on a real life pair of SheFly pants? Was there funding in place to begin with or was that an ongoing process?
We started by ripping the crotches out of existing hiking pants and sewing in zippers ourselves. Zippers are pretty tricky to sew, and we were soon hiring seamstresses around Vermont to help us. We funded the early stages with our own funds and prize money from pitch competitions, and then got a $20,000 investment from the Dorm Room Fund (backed by First Round Capital) to finish prototyping and file our patent applications. Then we worked with a technical designer to put together a “tech pack,” which is the booklet of instructions we needed to send to a factory in order to get the pants produced. We did a crowdfunding campaign on IFundWomen which tripled our goal and raised $54,000, and used that money to begin production at a fair trade and zero waste manufacturing facility in India.
Were there many actual prototypes before settling on a design(s) or was most of that hashed out in the early design phase?
We made hundreds of prototypes with every design we could think of. We tested snaps, velcro, buttons, and different sizes and placements of zippers. Most of these designs were tested by sewing different fasteners into existing pants.
Is the product designed strictly for “freeing the peeing” or can you essentially answer all of nature’s calls while wearing them?
You can answer all of nature’s calls, including #2 and changing menstrual products!
The marketing for the company is charmingly humor-centric yet it also does the job at getting across that this idea is not just about convenience. Tell us about your approach to balancing out that brand messaging and awareness?
We know that bodily functions, and especially women’s bodily functions, are highly taboo. We use humor to make our solution accessible to more people. Owning the awkwardness by starting out with a joke does a great job of making people feel comfortable talking about subjects that we think don’t get enough attention.
People can be weird about certain things that we all do (in this case NEED to do). Have you had any push back or resistance from the public as you have gotten the word out about the concept, philosophy and spirit of SheFly?
We have had small amounts of push back, mostly from men who don’t understand the problem or from women who are concerned that the zipper might not be comfortable and discreet — they’re always convinced once they try on a pair! But most people have been extremely excited about SheFly. We are addressing a clear need in the market and anyone who’s been outside with a woman understands that.
It’s one thing to see a concept, another to put it into practice of course. How did SheFly go about testing the pants out in the real world? Were there focus groups?
We had dozens of people test the pants all over the world, in all sorts of environments. I personally tested the pants on treks in Ladakh, India, while hiking the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, climbing Mount Baker, and on an all-women expedition to climb Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America.
Who designed the brilliant SheFly logo?
I came up with the concept for the logo and then we had a friend help us vectorize it. The concept behind the logo is to show how our zipper design “unzips” access to the outdoors and welcomes more people to feel comfortable and confident outside. There’s also visual symmetry to anatomy that we like to play with — we like being a bit bold and cheeky!
What products are currently available from SheFly and where can people find them?
We are currently pre-selling our Go There hiking pants in three colorways on our website. The pants will ship in late spring — sheflyapparel.com
We are launching leggings this fall and shorts in spring 2023. Stay tuned for additional products and big news coming soon!
Is there a dream scenario concerning some type of collaboration or distribution deal for SheFly products you are chasing after?
We are launching in Moosejaw Mountaineering stores this spring and are interested in working with existing brands to license our zipper in the future.
Oh, one more thing. Are you still making coffee paintings? If so, is there any place online people can see/purchase those?
Yes, my etsy store is etsy.com/shop/UpTurnedPages (I don’t have a lot listed at the moment but I’m adding more soon).
SheFly:
Charlotte Massey:
