Born to Sell

Supermodel Kathy Ireland turned heads before turning her vision into a $1.4 billion business.

Socks to Riches

Kathy Ireland's metamorphosis from supermodel to supermogul started with a pair of socks. It was 1993, and the beauty best known for showing off string bikinis in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues had just been asked to flaunt foot warmers. Pregnant with her first child, Ireland contemplated her future and concluded that if it was going to involve socks, she would rather sell them than show them off.

"Modeling was a wonderful experience, but I wanted to build something that wasn't fleeting," says Ireland, now 43. "I knew my days there were numbered, and I wanted to move on to something else. Socks would be a great place to start."

They were. Kathy Ireland Worldwide, now a $1.4 billion lifestyle design company, recently sold its 100 millionth pair of socks.

But achieving this level of success took determination and hard work, and Ireland has never been afraid to face a challenge. When she was 11, she applied for a paper route in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California. "My dad showed me the newspaper ad, which said, 'Are you the boy for the job?' I wrote to the editor, 'I am not the boy for the job, but I am the girl for the job.'"

She started delivering papers on New Year's Day, when they were bulging with post-holiday ad circulars and sales supplements. "I was a scrawny kid. As I approached this one customer, he started yelling, 'This is a boy's job! What are you doing here?'"

Although discouraged, Ireland soon bounced back. "I needed to prove him wrong." And she did: "For three years in a row, I was nominated carrier of the year." That drive stood her in good stead through her turn as supermodel and, later, as she was launching her business.

Ireland and the team that managed her modeling career had long held the idea of leveraging her looks into something more lasting. "I felt that if women embraced our socks, we would be onto something, and it would be a good foundation for our brand," Ireland says. "At first, people said, 'You can't build a brand based on socks.' But just because it has never been done doesn't mean that it can't be done."

To turn the idea into reality took money -- and that was something Ireland was short of. She had tried earlier business ventures, but they had failed, making her a credit risk. Furthermore, she had to convince bankers that she was more than just a pretty face. "The modeling made people aware of me, but it made it more challenging for them to take my ideas seriously."

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