The Jake Browning Girlfriend Bodysuit Designed By Stephanie Niles' Cousin Goes On Sale This Friday -- Ladies, Get This Look!
It will forever be the white bodysuit that changed the NFL wife and girlfriend fashion game.
Sunday, in a private suit at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati, Stephanie Niles, the girlfriend of Bengals quarterback Jake Browning was spotted by a CBS camera celebrating a touchdown in her customized white bodysuit and the rest is history thanks to the fashion sense of her cousin, Taylor Damron.
The Jacksonville-based Damron, who owns Elle & B Creative Co., a clothing and apparel business, had finally delivered a viral success that she'd been working towards since Niles started being spotted by TV cameras during Browning's run as injured Joe Burrow's replacement.
Niles, Damron and Browning used their time wisely. Browning finished the year 4-3 as the starter and has enough game tape to apply for starting jobs around the league. Niles established herself as an NFL wife and girlfriend (WAG) force.
And Damron is the breakout star apparel designer of the NFL season.
"If we rewind to the Jags game, this is where everything started," Damron told OutKick during a conversation on Thursday. "I made her a one-piece bodysuit for that game and it got a little attention, maybe one article, but at least people were interested."
That's when the co-collaborators went to work building a plan. Jake Browning would be starting the rest of the year. They needed a fashion strategy for Niles because the cameras were starting to catch her touchdown celebrations.
“I made her a black suit for the Vikings game, but the package didn’t get to her in time, so once her black leather pants went viral, we changed gears and said, ‘Does the bodysuit need to be white?’ and not black. That’s all that happened."
"The rest is history."
Damron wasn't prepared for what came next as Niles and the bodysuit became the talk of pop culture. She says there are multiple people in line for customized bodysuits that will drop Friday starting at $179.
What would it cost to get a suit like Stephanie wore?
"Hers was actually fairly basic in terms of intricacies - $200," Damron said. "The more rhinestones something has, the more it costs!"
What if Taylor Swift calls at the last second for Chiefs playoff apparel? The fairly overwhelmed designer hasn't had much chance to even think about such a scenario.
“I should mock something up for sure if the time comes," she joked.
But this might not be as far-fetched as one might think.
Damron says "people with a lot of followers" have reached out for designs. Her career is officially taking off thanks to that bodysuit but she's also realistic.
“I’m not wanting to focus completely on the ," she said. "There are a lot of gameday couture apparel girls doing just that,” as she praised the best in the industry. “I’m leaning towards your average fan. It’s a much larger market and from there you have so much freedom in terms of where are we going to go with this.
"My goal at the end of the day is to do custom pieces for but we have to be honest and look at this as what WAG is going to put on a white bobsled-looking suit because they’re going to be compared to Stephanie Niles.”
She knows the business needs balance. White bodysuits could be out in weeks. There's always the next trend.
For instance, Damron says team jerseys are out and women need to be thinking vintage.
“Jerseys are kinda fading out. Some kind of denim jacket, puffer jacket, a vintage-looking varsity letterman jacket. Eeven if they aren’t in, white bobsled bodysuits weren’t in three days ago,” Damron laughed.
“Now they’re in, baby!”