Terra Saunders, Skimpy-Clothes Magnate, Dresses All the Biggest Names in Boobs

Uniforms, short on fabric and tight on fit, worn by attractive young women, are one of the reasons why brands such as Southwest Airlines and Twin Peaks feel so Texan. America’s sweethearts made crop tops and hot pants as much a part of the state’s identity as cowboy hats and boots. And if you were a woman wearing one of those uniforms to cheer for four hours, or wait tables for eight, wouldn’t you want it to be as comfortable as a broken-in pair of boots, as sturdy as Carhartts or Dickies?

Designer—and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader from 1995–2000—Terra Saunders wants that cheerleader or server to be able to bend, jump, reach, stretch, and twist without having to constantly readjust her outfit (or her body parts) to make sure she stays attractively covered. As the owner of two fashion brands, Dallaswear Uniforms and Waitressville Uniforms, she makes sure that booty shorts, crop tops, and minidresses are as durable as work-wear items that don’t reveal midriffs. Her wares are manufactured in a Dallas factory just beyond the LBJ Freeway, where thirty workers put together the sequins and spandex for NFL and NBA squads all over the country, as well as the server outfits for breastaurant brands, including Texas’s own chains Bombshells and Twin Peaks.

Saunders’s first sewing effort was to make herself a bonnet like Laura’s on Little House on the Prairie, she says. Later, she fell in love with the glitz of the Bob Mackie gowns she saw while watching reruns of The Carol Burnett Show and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. “You put those [elaborate costumes] on, it’s like a wedding gown, right? Or my Dallas Cowboy cheerleader uniform. You’re a whole different girl, and that is something every woman can relate to whether they have a cool uniform or not,” she tells me.