Fashion designer and Delta native returns from California to start business in Tchula

Company will soon celebrate its first year in the Delta

BY ROBERT MCFARLAND, JR.

Delta Business Journal

Just over a year ago, Jannie Whitt, a native of Pace in Bolivar County, was living in sunny California working as a fashion designer. One year later, the small town of Tchula is Whitt’s new home.

"We relocated here from North Hollywood, California where I had been working for several years," says Whitt whose name brand of under garments in California is called Unusual Babe Undercover. Whitt’s Unusual Babe Undercover (all-cotton camisoles, night shirts, boxers and panties) is sold in department stores and speciality boutiques. Whitt also has a less expensive line that is found in many chain stores.

With encouragement from the Mississippi Department of Economic and Community Development and other economical development organizations, Whitt moved her intimate apparel manufacturing operation last July to Tchula and named the new concern, W & W International, Inc. The small operation is hard at work with five employees.

‘After I gained some recognition in California as a designer, the government made me an offer to relocate back here in order to help establish jobs and opportunities in this field," says Whitt. "We have been very busy and business is picking up tremendously. At the moment, we are working on our holiday catalog and just finished shooting all of the pictures. The catalog will be finished in July."

Raised eight miles east of Cleveland in the small town of Pace, Whitt found her calling in high school through her mother who was a retired sewing teacher. After graduating from high school in Rosedale, she moved to California to begin studying design. Whitt ended up dropping out of design school after she was told that she wasn’t qualified to be a designer. Whitt decided to go out on her own as a clothing designer eventually making her mark in under garments.

Whitt feels very comfortable with the future of her company in Tchula.

"We have recently been awarded a large contract for men’s underwear which will necessitate our growth. We feel that the future of our company will be extremely big because we have such a niche in the market and with the type of work that we do the reason I decided to go into this area of the apparel industry is because there is such a void in the market for elegant women’s 100 percent cotton under garments."

Whitt projects that her company will increase to 100 employees within a year and will possible open another facility in Durant.