Canada.com:
‘Mommy, I have a wedgie” is a common refrain heard by moms potty training a daughter.
Panties ride up. They get stuck. Or they sag. Too tight or too loose, they bother little girls because they just don’t fit right.
Quite frankly, Rebecca Winterhalt had had enough. So it was serendipitous when, last summer, her then-two-year-old daughter, Sienna, had a potty accident while playing with her cousin. Lacking backup panties, Mom dressed Sienna in a pair of her nephew’s gotch — the Saskatchewan term for boys’ briefs — and was amazed by how well they fit.
“They never rode up once; she never complained,” says Winterhalt, 32. At that moment, the mom of two (younger daughter Sydney is 22 months) realized little boys have awesome underwear.
“They should have gotch for girls,” thought Winterhalt.
She talked to her husband about her business idea and, with his support, Girl Gotch was born.
Winterhalt put together a business plan and started researching girls’ underwear in her spare time (she was still working a day job as a sales rep until this past April).
She knew there wasn’t a comparable product on the market because she had purchased every available brand of panties, in an array of sizes, in her quest to find ones that fit Sienna, with no luck.
Winterhalt bought material, called a local clothing manufacturer, and got them to mock up some samples. She also worked with a local designer to create a design. This involved picking apart boys’ briefs and boxers to capture key style elements, such as the thicker, cloth-covered elastic waistbands, and the softer material binding on the legs. Finally, she watched Sienna play in different prototypes.
Girl Gotch briefs are sized by age (two to eight), and come in three-packs of white, or pink, purple and aqua. Apart from the girlie colours and flowery logo, they look almost identical to boys’ tighty whities. It makes sense, since little boys’ and girls’ bodies are structurally similar (no hips, no bum).
Logo from Girl Gotch