How Did Figs Start Selling Scrubs?

Heather Hasson says Figs started selling scrubs out of her car in emergency rooms, after a short path from a favor to a product.

In 2010 in Los Angeles she bought fabric off the shelf, made a pattern, hired a sewer, and sewed about 30 sets. They were forest green with a bright yellow Figs label. She sent them to a couple of clinics and did not think of it as a company. The shift came over coffee with a nurse practitioner. Hasson asked what her friend was wearing and called the scrubs garbage. In college anatomy, scrubs were one size, so she had worn extra-large ones and rolled them up. She drove to strip-mall scrub stores, found the same clothes, and tailored a pair. The friend, who worked at Cedars, called and asked for another pair. Then one of that friend's friends asked too.

Most hospitals did not hand scrubs out. A very small share put them in vending machines, and most people bought their own. The stores mixed the clothes with cardboard boxes, bedpans, and crutches. The workers she talked to were not angry. They said the clothes were simply what they wore. Hasson was upset that people who save lives had to wear boxy, scratchy scrubs every day. She had no money. A manufacturer believed in the idea and backed a first run she puts at about 15,000. She found people on Craigslist for a photo shoot, put the designs on a website, and started selling from the car.