Spanx and the red backpack

Imagine walking into the headquarters of one of America's most polished luxury department stores with your prototype in a kitchen zip bag and your old college backpack over one shoulder. The buyer gives you ten minutes. Two minutes in, you can feel the room slipping away. So you make the strangest possible request: come with me to the bathroom. That is where Sara Blakely turned a private wardrobe problem into a public company story.