Siwy

By Elizabeth Gudrais, The Providence Journal

NEW YORK -- The e-mail from Maria in London began with a simple "hi" and a question: Where could she get another pair of Siwy jeans?

The tone of Maria's message gradually grew more urgent, eventually bordering on fanatical.

"I found that the cut of these around my butt was just the most amazing thing I have ever seen and I think they have saved my relationship!" she wrote. "I need to find these exact jeans in different washes. I would like a different pair for each day of the week!"

It's a common reaction to Siwy Denim, a new line of jeans designed by Michelle Siwy.

Since Siwy launched her line a year ago, its trademark quilted heart patch has graced more than a few famous rear ends: Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Selma Blair, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Jessica Simpson and the OC's Rachel Bilson. It's been featured in the editorial content (either news stories or fashion spreads) in Elle -- both the U.K. and U.S. versions -- Lucky, Star, Marie Claire, Women's Wear Daily and Nylon, as well as several smaller fashion-industry publications.

After designing for several clothing companies, Siwy, 29, a native of Central Falls, R.I., decided to pursue her own line because in spite of the bewildering number of choices in designer denim, she wasn't able to find the perfect pair. It was either a beautiful wash and a bad fit, or a good fit in a boring color.

"Even in a market that was so saturated with denim lines," she says, "there was still a gap."

By all accounts, Siwy has created a product that supremely flatters the female figure. Her bootcut, for instance, draws in at the bottom instead of flaring out farther, creating a silhouette that balances a woman's hips. Her jeans lift butts and lengthen legs, but also feature user-friendly details such as a hem that's shorter in back so it doesn't drag on the ground -- refreshing in a world of jeans cut so long they drag even with 4-inch heels.

Siwy's denim shorts extend deliberately "down to where the cellulite ends for most people," and are cut higher in back to create a more flattering profile: "When you're viewing it from the side, the eye lifts," she explains.

The jeans are dangerously form-fitting: A tongue-in-cheek instruction sheet for putting them on includes such motions as squatting and wiggling.

They're "designed to give curves to girls who don't have them and flatter those who do," as described in YM magazine's back-to-school 2005 issue. Says Siwy: "Everything works with a woman's body, which is curvy even on a thinner woman."

Siwy, the second of four sisters, began drawing at age 7, when she found herself with idle time after she was hit by a car and seriously hurt. In high school, she remembers browsing through the racks of cast-off denim at the Salvation Army store, trying to figure out why certain colors appealed to her and what cuts worked with different fabrics.

After graduating from high school, she put aside her fashion dreams to study nursing at the University of Rhode Island. It didn't take. She finished her bachelor's degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

Siwy named her first styles after her sisters. Tina, the oldest, is a library assistant at the Providence Journal newspaper, Kathy is an accountant, and Kim is a chef at a Vietnamese restaurant.

Perhaps Siwy was destined for denim: The family name, pronounced "SEE-wee," is of Polish origin and denotes a bluish-gray color.

Besides jeans and shorts, Siwy designs skirts, capris and clamdiggers. She's adding T-shirts for spring, and would consider adding jackets and vests, but denim, she says, will always be the centerpiece.

Siwy employs three sales reps and a publicist, but logs long days herself. She's up early to take calls from London, and works till the day ends in Los Angeles.

She designs at the Lower East Side home where she lives with her videographer husband, Ed Burke, or at her SoHo studio. But rather than show at Fashion Week in Bryant Park, she promotes her creations at trade shows and a showroom in the Meatpacking District. Read more