Activewear’s special feature provides speedy relief

Published 11:31 pm Sunday, November 9, 2008

In the bathroom realm, most everyone, at one time or another, has had to really, really go.

Gloria Vanderberg Murray of Everett has a solution. She patented a crotch design that makes relief just a snap away.

Her invention was recently featured in Outside magazine, in an issue titled “The Future is Now: 59 tools and ideas that will change your life.”

Karen Peacock of Everett learned about the invention from a friend.

“Gloria invented sports shorts for women with a special feature in the crotch that allows women to answer the call of nature while keeping ‘exposure’ to a minimum,” Peacock said. “The shorts also speed up the process when you really have to go and time is of the essence. I can think of many times in my life when these shorts would have come in handy.”

In a nutshell, pants are built to unsnap in a flash.

“It is an ‘anatomically compatible’ crescent shape,” Murray said. “It is designed with two overlapping flaps of equal size that attach to each other.”

Being anatomically compatible, she said, means it doesn’t inhibit the wearers performance in any way.

“I hate to be crude,” she said, “But it won’t catch or hurt your private parts.”

Murray, who owns Seattle Photography Inc. in Everett with her husband, Carl Murray, listened to friends complain of incontinence.

“One day while power walking, I confidently passed up my pit stop at the two-mile mark,” she said. “When I got home and ran to the bathroom, my clothing was cold, my body hot, and my spandex pants didn’t come down fast enough.”

Uh oh.

An idea began to percolate, but was put on hold. She had cancer in her lungs, liver and bones.

Murray nearly died.

During her treatment, she saw a successful invention on a television show, a snow shovel with a wheel. The inventor, who also had cancer, was proud of his accomplishment.

“His story inspired me to fight,” she said. “I spent six years finding a workable solution and received a patent in September 2006.”

Rather than manufacturing and marketing on her own, she decided to go a different route, Murray said.

She is working on entering into licensing agreements with companies that would allow them to incorporate her design into specific garments they manufacture, she said.

For instance for brides, Murray would like to see Bali incorporate her design in a slenderizing garment. She sees Danskin and Champion incorporating her patent in pants they manufacture.

“It’s activewear,” she said, “not Frederick’s of Hollywood.”

She had another purpose for the invention, besides being useful for folks out hunting or hiking.

“I used to work with developmentally disabled people and saw the difficulty they had with a simple task such as going to the bathroom,” Murray said. “I had special-needs people in mind, hoping to help them improve the quality of life a little.”

Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.

You’ve gotta go

For more information, e-mail gloriav@seattlephotography.com.