Cast Characters - The Weekend Pinnacle

Friday, March 27, 2009

By Adam Breen

Cast Coverz! creator Annette Giacomazzi has a viariety of different colors and patterns available to order.

Photo by: Nick Lovejoy

J.T. Nolan, 11, broke his arm in a bike accident, wears Cast Coverz! over the plaster cast. Creator Annette Giacomazzi of Hollister thought up the idea after her daughter broke bones multiple times.

Cast Coverz! come in many different patterns and colors to help hide the boring cast while healing a broken bone.

Photo by: Nick Lovejoy

A daughter's latest broken bone was the break that a Hollister woman needed to start a company that hopes to cover the market on medical cast fashion.
 

Annette Giacomazzi, the founder of the local YMCA and owner of the market research firm Ruralnomics - said that after her 11-year-old last year suffered a broken bone for the sixth time and had an "absolutely ugly" cast put on it, inspiration struck.
 

"I whipped up a cover for it to make it a little more attractive and let her have some fun with it, and lo and behold, I had an 'aha!' moment," Giacomazzi said.
 

Using a stretchy and colorful Lycra-Spandex fabric that can accommodate a number of sizes of casts, Giacomazzi realized that there could be a market for a product that dresses up the typical unembellished plaster cast. Called Cast Coverz!, it sells for $19.99.
 

"It's fun, it's functional and it's fashionable," said the 49-year-old Giacomazzi, who has sewn since junior high school and at one point had a company that sold precut, fully-assembled sewing kits.
 

No stranger to entrepreneurship, having started and sold four companies, Giacomazzi called her latest venture "by far the most fun because it is a fun product. You're making people smile, plus I like all of the puzzle pieces that have to be in place when you manufacture and distribute a product. It's also a great life lesson for my children."
 

Giacomazzi's father was a distributor of toys, crafts, hobbies and models to stores such as Target and Woolworth's. Cast Coverz! is just one of a line of products planned under the umbrella of Giacommazi's company MediFAB3, which plans to market everything from custom arm slings to oxygen tank covers.
 

"I saw how successful businesses worked," she said, which has come in handy as she markets Cast Coverz! to doctors around the country at conventions and via the Web.
 

At the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons' conference in Las Vegas in February, Giacomazzi said her product was "very well received."
 

"There are six million broken bones in the U.S. alone every year and very little options for patients who want to dress up their casts a bit," she said. "At the show we received hundreds of names of doctors to whom we are sending literature on our product for their offices and patients. Doctors from across the country are calling."
 

Giacomazzi's friend, Debra Armstrong, whose family of six has had 13 broken bones between them - including eight by Armstrong alone - helped launch Cast Coverz! The Hollister resident has spoken with local doctors in a grassroots effort to market the product.
 

The Cast Coverz! product line includes designs for young and older people alike, as well as men and women. The covers can be used on either arm and are washable.
 

In addition to its visual appeal, the product, Giacomazzi notes, prevents casts from snagging on clothes and it helps keep a cast clean.
 

The company, which is field-testing decorative leg cast covers, offers arm cast covers with designs ranging from flowers to skulls and hearts to leopard prints. Custom orders and upgrades are available as well.
 

"We offer some premium fabrics," Giacomazzi said. "We have a grape scratch-and-sniff cover and stretch velvets for our more mature audiences."
 

She also sells custom covers that can match a wedding dress, evening gown, dance costume, tuxedo or a hunting outfit.
 

Kris Nolan, a certified public accountant and partner with Bianchi, Lorincz, Kasavan and Pope, said her 11-year-old son, J.T., picked out the cast cover for his broken arm from the company's Web site.
 

"A parent never wants to have a child break a bone, but it's a fun product for your kids," she said. "It breaks up the monotony and burden of wearing a cast [and] it prevents snagging his clothes and scratching his skin.
 

Giacomazzi, who has lived in Hollister for 12 years and was the campaign manager for the No on G campaign and the proposed Del Webb housing development, orders the material for her products from fabric houses in New York, inspects it, then ships it to a cut-and-sew contractor in San Diego who designs the covers to Giacomazzi's specifications. Cast Coverz! are then packaged and shipped to Hollister for distribution.
 

"Thirty percent of our initial inventory is sold out and we're going back into production now," Giacomazzi said, adding that her Web site, www.castcoverz.com, features local models and used local design talent.
 

"I'm trying in my own way to keep our economy going," she said.
 

Cast Coverz! does have competition in the cast embellishment market, though Giacomazzi notes that one such company - Sling Couture - markets to a "very high-end, narrower market."
 

With two active children, including a 12-year-old boy who has yet to have a broken bone, Giacomazzi said her latest venture has been a welcome challenge.
 

"It's a lot of fun," she said. "To be able to create something in such a down period shows that just because everything around you is negative doesn't mean you can't fulfill your dreams.