A couple of clicks around the Naughty Naughty Lingerie website will instantly tell you one thing: Terry Gilchrist in an incredibly talented “panty maker” with a keen eye for style, a firm grasp of what “sexy” is, and how to make women everywhere feel like a million bucks. What you won’t learn is that not only is Terry an accomplished designer, but she’s also an award winning ballerina, a highly regarded dance instructor, a successful small business owner and once earned a living selling real estate and waiting tables. And there’s so much more to learn!

Terry’s childhood babysitter gets the credit for teaching her to sew, but the genius is all hers. As a child, Ms. Anne, sewed as a hobby and after being pestered for weeks she finally agreed to teach Terry to sew – straight lines only! They started with a quilt, which Terry lovingly calls “the ugliest red and lime green 70’s quilt you’ve ever seen.” By high school, she was trolling thrift shops for clothes to repurpose for herself and by college she was making her own dresses from scratch using only the unique ideas in her head. While in college, she taught dance classes, and – remembering what she’d learned watching a seamstress make her own tiny little dance costumes – she began sewing dance outfits for her tiny little charges. All those baby bumblebees and snow angels were just too adorable and soon Terry was sewing all the time.

During a routine trip to the fabric store, Terry fell in love with a beautiful white, pleated lace. She bought a couple of yards because it was just too pretty to pass up, but really hadn’t any idea what to do with it. Next on her shopping trip was a mall stop for a pair of normal, plain, every day thong panties. Like every woman does after a successful shopping outing, Terry lined up all her wares to admire them – including that lovely white lace. Though the idea of sewing the lace to the thong was just that – an idea – she kept coming back to it over and over. Finally, she cut the lace, sewed it to the panties and voila – the skirted thong was born! And naughty history began…

Terry originally opened an Etsy shop to sell her handmade resin bangle bracelets after showing a pal from New York a few of her creations. Her jewelry was doing just fine and she was having fun, but panties were still on the brain. Naughty Naughty got its name sometime in the middle of the night and the moment it hit her, Terry registered her store on Etsy. In just one month she was posting her handmade lingerie on Etsy and a few short months later, her panties were getting more than four times the “hits” of her bangles. It wasn’t long before jewelry was out and lingerie was in and in full swing.

While Terry admits she once swore by the lingerie in that coveted striped pink box – she even confesses to having the angel credit card balance to prove it! – she also admits that she was never really comfortable in those pieces and in the back of her mind, she wondered if the $150 she’d just dropped to impress her man had already impressed him on a previous girlfriend. When she set out to make Naughty Naughty successful, Terry’s goal was to create a truly unique line of under garments that would not only impress a man, but make the lady feel truly beautiful in her skin too.

Her sense of humor never quits and neither does her dedication to perfectionism in her product. Terry giggles when she talks about the first pair of flutter boyshorts she attempted. They weren’t “fluttery” at all, but rather resembled loose fitting granny panties. When her assistant seamstress died laughing, Terry shrugged “well they can’t all be winners” and headed back to the sewing table.

When asked what the best part of her job is, Terry answers without a blink: the wonderful, complimentary messages from my customers. Specifically she remembers a lady that threw away every other panty in her drawer and bought one of every Naughty color because she loved the comfort, the fit and quality. Another lady e-mailed Terry with a story about how she had felt so unsexy since giving birth to her first child, but felt gorgeous again the moment she slipped on her new Naughty nightgown. To Terry, it’s worth every failed fluttery granny panty when her inbox dings with a message like that. She’s said, “That’s why I wanted to do this in the first place. Women spend so much time taking care of their loved ones and others around them, that they often let themselves go and the result is low self-esteem and lack of self-worth. I wanted to create a line of comfortable, sexy, custom fit lingerie with the hope that a lady might choose one of my pieces over sweatpants and a t-shirt at bedtime.”

Terry’s plan has worked. She has been featured in dozens of blogs as well as the Commercial Appeal and she has more front page Etsy features than anyone can count. She has also successfully integrated her line into boutiques in both Florida and Texas. Terry was also a featured designer in last year’s Colorado AIDS Ben