Southern California resident, 38 year old Karyn Cortani recently gets patent on industry revolutionizing “Notched Toe” pantyhose called Tohos. These hose are Not Toeless (at first everyone thinks they are)! Tohos are THE WORLD’S FIRST full-foot pantyhose designed to make the legs, feet, and toes LOOK bare while, in fact, being totally covered (and enhanced) by nude sheer-toe hosiery.
Karyn is presently negotiating with Nordstrom and is sure many other high-end retailers will be just as excited. They retail for $12 a pair. Karyn thought of the design while trying on a 70’s-style dress and platform thong sandals of her sister’s. She thought hose would complete the look, but when she tried stuffing the toe-portion of the pantyhose between her toes to accommodate the sandals, they were uncomfortable and the toes busted out. She thought “Someone should patent some full-foot, sheer-toe stockings just for wear with thong sandals!” Little did she know that years later, it would be her! Back then, she put her ideas on the shelf, worked a while, then went to college where her entrepreneurial side emerged. At CSUC, she went to police auctions, bought cars below wholesale, and sold them to fund her living & education. Since getting her MA, she’s been a race car driver, a bikini model, a radio personality, and most recently, a freelance writer for a national magazine. Remembering the dress incident years before (and watching the fashion of the 70’s coming back), Karyn decided she still wanted those pantyhose, as thong sandals of all sorts again became “in” and her love of elegant stockings would not quit.
So she went to her seamstress, to ask if it was possible to sew a pair of pantyhose that would accommodate thong sandals. Within a day my seamstress handed me the first Tohos prototypes! I was so excited I put them on right there; they were beautiful! Before I knew it, all the women in the shop formed a ring around me and began saying “Wow, those are great!” and “It’s about time someone thought of that,” and “In all my years, I’ve never seen...,” and “Girl, you better get a patent on those!” Karyn got similar reactions at many LA dance clubs and everywhere she went. Prior to those heady reactions, she just wanted a few dozen pairs for herself, but after receiving so much positive feed back she thought even though, "I have no money, contacts or business knowledge, I will reach for my dreams, regardless.”
Subsequently, she presented her idea cautiously to anyone who would listen and who had the funds to help her get a patent. Everyone told her what a great idea she had, but no one stepped up to the venture capitalist plate. Then, one of her bosses (Eric Tate) said he’d take a couple dozen pairs home to a weekend reunion to see what women in his family had to say. When he came back to work Monday, he told Karyn what raves the prototypes had drawn from his many female relatives. Combined with similar results on Karyn’s end, they decided the idea was huge, and shook hands on it. “Eric was--and still is--the perfect partner...” says Karyn, “he had the beginning capital, business experience, and the trust/friendship factor I’d been searching for.” The patent was originally denied by the PTO (United States patent and trademark office) as being “Not Patentable” due to a similar design that has been in use in Japan for socks for thousands of years (“Tabi socks”) but a revised second submission yielded sweet fruit in Patent form.
Karyn didn’t start out this sure of herself. Her young life was tainted by dysfunctional and debasing poverty . Karyn says of the hard times that they were “...just hurdles on the course of life and, clearing them on a daily basis only made me a stronger contender!” You’d think that the many hardships she’s experienced would be a mixture conducive to anything but creative genius and subsequent business success. Karyn, however, is inspiring proof that anyone can do anything! You go girl!
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