How It All Started..

Terry Kiskaddon knew she wanted to become a fashion designer by the time she was 10. As the only girl with four male siblings, clothing excited her. "I would whip up a new outfit at night and wear it to school the next day- then I didn't have to wear hand-me-downs from my brothers!" laughs Terry. A decade later, after studying fashion design in Atlanta, moving to California, and obtaining a $30,000 SBA loan, she established her own clothing company Harper Greer. The name Harper Greer came from a baby name book and was choosen because Terry thought it sounded glamourous.

One Size Does Not Fit All...
Terry started out making clothes for women sizes 6-12, however that changed when she met her future partner, John, and his mother, Lillian, who convinced them to design some clothing for women like Lillian who are larger than a size 12. The Harper Greer line was sold wholesale to specialty and hi-end department stores throughout the nation for five years. Terry opened her first retail store in the SoMa district of San Francisco in 1989, and opened a second retail store in Berkeley in 2003 Her goal today? To open more Harper Greer stores.

Style and Beauty for the Full-Figured...
Terry believes that any style can be made for plus size women as long as the are properly fit. How does a new design become reality? The first samples are cut in a size 16, tried on her fit models, and viewed with a critical eye before putting them into production.