Wilt Adds Intimate Division
It was an easy transition for Roxanne Heptner to add sleepwear/loungewear to her design repertoire. She was already wearing the loose, oversized T-shirts from her Wilt line to bed.
“I started sleeping in my T-shirts,” Heptner said. “I was finding that in my T-shirts—that it had the right length, it had the right fullness, it was very soft and comfortable, it breathed, the sleeves were extra long, it was sophisticated—it was all the features that I wanted in sleepwear.”
Heptner has been in the apparel business, producing brands with her husband, for about 18 years. She has made clothes under the labels Roxywear, Roxanne Heptner and CC Outlaw, among others. Currently, the only brands in production are Left of Center, a label that ships exclusively to Anthropologie, and the tops-driven Wilt clothing line of fashion-cut T-shirts.
The boundaries distinguishing the loose, asymmetrical T-shirts under the Wilt clothing label and the night shirts with long ribbed sleeves under the Wilt Intimate label is intentionally blurry. She uses the same silhouette shapes for both divisions and expects that the wearer will wear Wilt loungewear out of the house.
“Everything is oversized,” said Heptner of the brand’s signature shape. “You’re not feeling like you’re wearing the wrong size, because it’s controlled oversized. We try to make the upper part of the garment feel easy, slouchy, comfortable, but yet you can see that there is a body in there.”
Heptner’s previous ready-to-wear labels were targeted toward specific and focused markets, such as juniors. She went in the opposite direction for Wilt, which can be worn by women in their 20s up to stylish 70s.
“As I grew up, I didn’t find everything that I wanted to wear in the market,” said the 55-year-old designer. “I feel as we age, we are not our parents. We don’t have the taste level that our parents have. But the market wasn’t evolving with it. Just because we were maturing with age doesn’t mean we became the misses customer. I think there is a big void in the marketplace in many areas to address that customer. That is who I go after as one of the Wilt customers, whether it’s sportswear or intimates.”
The look is a hip interpretation of clothes that are sleep-friendly, such as a collared shirt modeled after the classic pajama shirt that combines woven silk/cotton voile panels and knit-fabric sleeves ($63 wholesale), silk/cotton voile tap shorts cut like boxer shorts ($28), a gauzy sheer silk/cotton voile slip dress ($49), and a slub-knit tank that is high in the front and low in the back ($39).
For more information, contact The Gig Showroom, located in The New Mart, suite 203, at (213) 488-0975.—Rhea Cortado
