Aiming to solve an everywoman problem
Entrepreneur quit her job to launch Thigh Society, which helps stop ‘chub rub’
In the brave new world of confessional women’s lifestyle websites and posts, there is phenomenon quaintly called “chub rub” that has received inordinate attention in sticky season, along with all manner of ointments, unguents and even spray-on formulas peddled to prevent the rash that comes from naked thighs rubbing together in the summer heat.
“I have a basket of hundreds of dollars worth of product beside my desk,” says Marnie Consky, a Toronto woman who bills herself as a reluctant entrepreneur. “None of them work,” she says.
What does work is her breathable, seam-free, microfibre, moisturewicking shorts, sold online (and at a few specialty lingerie shops around town) under the clever handle Thigh Society.
Back in the summer of 2008, Consky had an eureka moment, born of intense discomfort. “I was working for the provincial government, out for a summer stroll at lunch around Bay St. and Wellesley St. W. It was the first dress I’d worn of the season and, 10 minutes into the walk, I could feel the burn. I had to stop to get baby powder, but I didn’t think I was going to make it back to the office.”
She set about researching and developing a bike-short-style item designed to prevent thigh chafing. The project became her side hustle. “It isn’t about size,” Consky says. “This is a problem that affects me when I’m a size 6 the same as when I’m a size12. Women are built like this: Our thighs touch, they just do! It’s an everywoman problem!”
So much so that Thigh Society is now her full-time job. She sells mainly online, shipping primarily south of the border, an empire built on one $34 (U.S.) pair at a time. Consky does her own PR and jump-started the business by contacting body positivity bloggers, “the pioneers in the plussize space, who are posting incredible images, owning their bodies, wearing whatever they want.”
She points to Vancouver blogger Margot Meanie (@margotmeanie; @alternativecurves) and Toronto’s Karyn Johnson (@KillerKurves) as influential supporters. Many bloggers are starting to ask for pay-toplay Kardashian-style, but Consky aims for old-fashioned earned press. She realized content was community and customer building, so she built a blog to generate original and reposted copy from the movement. Thigh Society was picked up by BuzzFeed and Bustle, and a solutionoriented brand was born.
“This is not shapewear,” she says. “It is comfort-first and doesn’t cinch you in like a sausage. We sell to a broad range of body types. This is a great moment when companies are starting to recognize people’s bodies are different. We aren’t making them to conform or contort to any ideas or ideals. I sell to 25-year-olds through to 70-year-olds — my mom was one of my original garment testers.”
People also tell me they buy it to wear for coverage under dresses, she says, to prevent wardrobe malfunctions on a windy day, or when riding a bike. “It is giving women their freedom back.”