On a beautiful day in early May 2024 — right around Earth Day — I got an email alerting me to the arrival of 15 boxes filled with underwear. This was not unusual, as I had started Paradis Sport, a women's performance underwear company, four years earlier. We had been sold out of our best-selling product, our seamless bikini, for two months, and the shipment marked a highly anticipated restock.
I rushed out the door, retrieved the boxes, and brought them to the folding table I had set up in our hallway. Our "inspection team" was a team of one: me. My designer had instructed me to inspect just 10% of the 4,000 pairs. If they were on spec, we could assume the rest were good to go. But as a bit of a control freak—and someone who has heard too many stories about third-party inspectors getting bribed or missing key issues—I needed to see the product with my own eyes. We were already behind schedule due to delays in elastic delivery, and customer emails were piling up: "When will you be back in stock?"
When I opened each box, I marveled at the bold, rich colors—each inspired by the landscape of Norway, where my family had hiked the previous summer. The fabric and thread, painstakingly matched, looked stunning. I snapped a few photos for my designer, then got to work.
My tech packs—drawings and measurement charts—were laid out before me. Each bikini had to be measured in 17 different places. Waistband, check. High hip, check. Length, check. Leg opening...
Wait. Why is the leg opening off by an inch?
The allowable tolerance was just 3/8 of an inch. An entire inch off was a huge red flag. I pulled a few more from the pile. Also off. Next batch? Still off. I held my breath and checked 50 more pairs across all the colors. Many were off by as much as two inches.
I called my designer, Louise, a seasoned industry vet. She was shocked. We had received TOPs (top-of-production samples) that were flawless. I had measured them myself. "Send me more photos," she said. "You’re going to have to inspect the entire order."
My stomach sank. Weeks of work lay ahead. Still, I did what any founder must do: I rolled up my sleeves and started measuring.
Why Quality Matters (and Why I Started This Company)
When I launched Paradis Sport in 2020, I was desperate for underwear that I could wear for an 8-hour hike or a tennis match. I had played D1 sports in the '90s and remained an active person, but my go-to underwear brand had changed their design and no longer worked.
I tried other brands. Many were terrible: poorly designed, caused chafing or fell apart quickly. I researched more and learned that most performance underwear for women was still designed by men. No wonder it didn’t work.
My husband, ever my champion, encouraged me to solve the problem myself. After 20 years of running my own architecture and landscape design business, I knew I could handle clients, contracts, and complexity. I called mills across the U.S. and found a brilliant designer in Vermont who had worked with Commando, NASA, and the U.S. military. After seven prototypes and 18 months of testing—with help from Dartmouth student-athletes who interned and fit-tested—we had our signature product. We named the brand Paradis Sport, after Marie Paradis, the first woman to climb Mont Blanc.
So... What Happened?
Back in the hallway of our faculty apartment, I worked 15-hour days for two weeks. Ten large boxes flanked the stairs. I measured every bikini, bent over a plastic table, while spring turned into summer outside. I thought often about the garment workers who do this type of labor for years, not weeks.
When it was over, the results were staggering: 91% of the bikinis were off-spec. Only 9% were saleable. I sent those out to our waiting customers and made the rest available for sale on our website. They sold out within days. And now... we were out of stock again.
But that was the least of our problems. What would we do with nearly 2,000 defective bikinis?
I reviewed our contract. We were guaranteed a refund if more than 5% of an order was defective. But would our U.S.-based manufacturer honor that? I wasn’t sure. I reached out to Louise. She was stunned, and then, mid-call, she quit. "I don’t want to spend the rest of my career dealing with disasters like this."
An Earth Day Reflection: What Do You Do With Waste?
As painful as the inspection process was, tossing 1,820 bikinis in the trash wasn’t an option. Our lawyer advised us not to donate the off-spec underwear as they have our logo in them and were not made correctly. So I drove two hours to the Bronx to drop them all off at our textile recycling nonprofit - Green Tree Recycling - where they will be shredded and turned into building insulation. I did not start this company to just make another product - I started it to make better underwear in the most responsible way possible, and that includes every part of the process, including managing waste.
Our legal counsel in Oregon helped us navigate the refund process. The manufacturer initially couldn’t believe the numbers. On a tense call, he blamed the factory workers - a different group from past production rounds - and insisted that these new people working on the floor don’t care about the quality and specifications of the garments they are making and were not doing any quality control as they made them.
He suggested moving production to their factory in China, where, he claimed, "the people care more and are more precise." I had been deeply committed to U.S. manufacturing, seeing it as the most sustainable option. But this experience had changed things.
The Reality of U.S. Apparel Manufacturing
We did everything we could to find another seamless knitting partner in the U.S., but the other options were smaller and not high quality. Eventually, we found a manufacturer in Portugal with top-tier sustainability standards: solar power, closed-loop water systems, ethical labor practices and the highest quality of manufacturing. Working with them felt like going from a jalopy to a Porsche.
We moved forward, and ironically will be receiving our second order as the new tariffs take effect. Our products are now made beautifully and responsibly. Of course, I wish we could make them here. But the U.S. doesn’t yet have the infrastructure or workforce training to scale this kind of production. Seamless knitting requires years of skill-building, and factory workers here now command six-figure salaries.
What We Learned
Manufacturing isn’t easy, and neither is building a mission-driven business. But we believe women deserve better. Better design. Better quality. Better values. And this Earth Day, we’re reminded that choosing sustainability isn’t always the easiest road — but it’s the one worth taking.
This Earth Day, Join Us
We invite you to think about where your underwear comes from. How it's made. Who it's made for. At Paradis Sport, we design with intention, test with athletes, and partner only with factories who meet our ethical and environmental standards. It's not just underwear. It's your first layer.
Happy Earth Day.
With gratitude, Sarah
Founder & CEO, Paradis Sport
