Baby on Board

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Baby on Board
Mountain Mama founder Teresa Delfin with material for her company’s line of outdoor clothing.

Teresa Delfin is two things, if nothing else. She’s an outdoor enthusiast with a passion for mountain climbing, and the mother of a young child.

So when she got pregnant three years ago, Delfin had what she considered a big problem: a lack of outdoor apparel that would fit. The 34-year-old Stanford-educated cultural anthropologist decided to make some on her own.

The result is Mountain Mama, a local startup filling a small niche.

“I always assumed the market had thought of everything but apparently it hadn’t,” said Delfin, whose son is now 2 years old. “The first thing I designed was a pair of long underwear, and then a fleece jacket. Those two pieces are why the company exists, because that’s what I wanted when I was pregnant.”

A fairly significant number of other pregnant women seem to want roughly the same things. In the first seven weeks since Delfin opened for business online in August, she has filled $17,000 worth of orders. And now the clothing line – which so far consists of 27 pieces priced from $29 for a warm stretchable tank top to $149 for a thermal coat – is also available at a few outdoor sporting shops in Alaska, Illinois and Taiwan.

Mountain Mama apparel also includes items such as outdoor-friendly nursing hoodies that wick away moisture and heavy hiking pants with suspenders to accommodate a pregnant woman’s physique.

“We have a Facebook page with 2,000 members,” says Delfin. “People are having babies all the time, even during a recession: We get e-mails every day asking, ‘Where have you been?’”

Where Delfin has been is on a circuitous career path beginning with a Stanford doctorate in social and cultural anthropology, leading to a teaching position at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. After she was laid off in 2007 due to budget cuts, she spent some time writing scripts for the Discovery Channel, requiring field work amid the Mayan ruins of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

By then, however, the young woman who had always loved the outdoors and designed clothing as a hobby since her youth was pregnant with her fist child. So, she and her husband, William, sold their Memphis home and moved to her father’s house in Ontario. Then, with the proceeds from the sale, along with loans from family members and friends, they accumulated $70,000 to start Mountain Mama.

Most of the designing is done by Delfin or by an assistant designer who works out of her home in Los Angeles. The fabrics are produced by Antex Knitting Mill in downtown Los Angeles, and most of the cutting and sewing takes place at El Monte’s Royal Apparel. The company has three employees: the assistant designer; a bookkeeper; and Delfin’s husband, who handles marketing.

Not only has the company begun filling orders, but it has generated a fair amount of buzz in a short time, with mentions of its line in local newspapers and on “Good Morning America.”

Jack Plunkett, chief executive of Houston-based Plunkett Research Ltd., a textile and apparel industry consultancy, believes the company is on to something.

“I absolutely think there’s a market for this,” he said. “If you think of the mind-set today of lots of women who are expecting, they want to stay trim and stay active. They don’t want to put on excessive weight and they want to look good.”

Untapped market

The immediate success has Delfin thinking big.

With annual sales of maternity clothing in the United States at about $2 billion, Delfin believes she can garner up to 3 percent of that, or roughly $50 million a year.

“The outdoor maternity industry is an untapped market. We think we’re going to capture a lot,” said Delfin, who for now supplements her income with a part-time teaching job at Whittier College. Her husband also works as a freelance writer.

If sales continue to take off, there are at least two potential competitors who might want in the business: maternity clothing chains A Pea in the Pod and Motherhood Maternity, both owned by Destination Maternity Corp. of Philadelphia. They offer sweaters, jeans, coats, stretch pants and hooded sweatshirts, but none of it appears to be designed specifically for the rugged outdoors.

Christopher Svezia, senior footwear and apparel analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group in New York, said there is good reason so-called technical ware for pregnant women is not available: It’s an “extremely niche” market.

“I don’t know of anyone else doing this because it’s too specialized. Not too many women who are seven months pregnant are out there walking in the woods,” Svezia said. “My wife was pregnant four times and, while she went for walks on the sidewalk, she wasn’t out climbing mountains or hiking on trails. There might be a niche here, but in terms of it becoming a full-scale multimillion-dollar brand, I don’t know.”

Delfin isn’t leaving anything to chance. In addition to promoting the products heavily on her own web page and on social networking sites such as Facebook, she is approaching outdoor sporting and mountaineering shops nationwide. She is also reaching out to stores specializing in maternity clothing, which she admits have been slower to respond.

Joe Hyer, the owner of two mountain sports equipment and clothing shops in Olympia, Wash. – the Alpine Experience and Olympic Outfitter – plans to begin stocking the line soon.

“This could really work,” said Hyer, who plans to promote sales with fliers at the offices of local midwives and obstetricians. “It’s something we’ve never done before, and new things are always fun and interesting:”

One customer who’s used the clothing is completely sold on it.

Jessica Kaup, an insurance agent in Glendive, Mon., who is six and a half-months pregnant, has continued to hike even though Montana gets quite cold in the fall and winter.

She recently stumbled across Mountain Mama’s website where she spent $160 on three items: a layered bottom-and-top set, a pair of long underwear and a fleece maternity vest.

“Here in Montana it gets to minus-30 degrees. I was desperate to find something, because I have to go outside,” said Kaup, 31. “I’ve worn the vest quite often in the mornings. I did some hiking the other weekend with my 8-year-old daughter and the stuff was perfect. I have no idea what else I’d have worn.”

Mountain Mama

CHIEF EXECUTIVE: Teresa Delfin

FOUNDED: 2009

CORE BUSINESS: Manufacturing maternity clothing for outdoor enthusiasts.

EMPLOYEES: 4

GOAL: To capture 3 percent of the maternity apparel market, or about $50 million in annual sales.

THE NUMBERS: $17,000 gross in the first seven weeks.

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