Featured News
December 17, 2025
Toni Carter’s journey to founding Toni & Tucker Co. started with a simple but powerful observation: clothes don’t fit people the way they should. As a fashion and technical designer who’s worked for some of the industry’s major apparel brands, Toni quickly noticed a glaring gap in the system. It wasn’t just about sizes — it was about shapes.
Her curiosity started long before she launched her brand. During her time in Philadelphia, Toni was constantly paying attention to how different body types carried the same clothes in completely different ways. “I always noticed that my friends and I could wear the same size and look completely different in it,” she says. “That stuck with me.” She went on to earn her degree in fashion design, then returned to grad school to research the very issue she’d observed for years: how to make clothing that actually fits the real structure of a person’s body.
That research led her into unexpected places. Toni tells the story of a group of football players she worked with who struggled endlessly to find suits that actually fit. You know, the kind of guys who have thighs — but still want to look sharp at a formal event. It was a “wait, this is a thing?” moment that changed the way she thought about design. Traditional sizing systems just weren’t cutting it. You can’t just size up and expect a better fit.
Toni realized that while you might gain or lose weight over time, your structure — your shoulders, hips, waist, and yes, thighs — tends to stay consistent. So why design clothes that only consider overall size and not these fundamental differences? That insight inspired her brand’s mission: create clothes that fit bodies, not numbers.
She began mapping out different body shapes by people-watching in downtown Philly, sketchbook in hand. From men with athletic builds to women with broader shoulders or curvier waists, she took note of recurring proportions that weren’t being addressed in the mainstream fashion world. Toni & Tucker Co. was born from that data — and that empathy. What started as a menswear line focused on those uniquely shaped “guys with thighs” evolved into a collection that embraces all kinds of real bodies.
Her technical background helps her do more than just sketch — she builds. Toni understands garment construction on a granular level, from fabric performance to seam placement, and she uses that expertise to make subtle but crucial changes that improve fit. Whether it’s a slightly longer rise to accommodate a muscular build or a dart added to contour around a curve, Toni is reimagining the details that most brands overlook. “A half inch can make the difference between someone feeling confident or wanting to take it off immediately,” she says.
Since moving from Los Angeles to Greenville nearly four years ago, Toni’s found a community that embraces her mission and fuels her creativity. “Exposure was my biggest challenge,” she says. “In LA, I worked from home and felt like I was shouting into the void. Here, I get to meet people, shake hands, and really put my name to my brand.”
That sense of connection has been crucial to her growth. Through organizations like Village Launch, NextGEN, and Platform at Greer, Toni has found a support system of fellow founders and mentors who understand both the creative and business sides of her work.
Toni & Tucker Co. is growing steadily, with designs that honor shape, movement, and comfort — without sacrificing style. But for Toni, this is bigger than just selling clothes. It’s about changing the conversation. “We’ve been trained to believe that we have to change our bodies to fit into clothes,” she says. “But what if the clothes changed to fit us?”
She envisions a future where body shape is a standard part of how brands think about fit — not an afterthought. She hopes Toni & Tucker Co. will serve as a blueprint for how fashion can evolve when designers listen to real people, design with intention, and care more about confidence than conformity.
“I want people to feel powerful in what they wear,” Toni says. “Whether you’re getting dressed for work or walking into a room where you need to feel like yourself, your clothes should support you — not make you shrink.”
With every stitch, sketch, and design decision, Toni is proving that great fashion doesn’t start with a size chart. It starts with a person.