Ladies! Upset because that cute little semi-automatic you`ve been packing is causing unsightly bulges in your slinky cocktail dress? Concerned that your shoulder holster is poking and prodding all the wrong curves and contours?
Have no fear. The pistol-packin` grandmom of a 3-year-old grandaughter is here to take care of your design needs.
”The women I know have a hard enough time getting in their pants, without having additional room for a gun,” says Linda Mutchnick, a 49-year-old Philadelphia-area paralegal who has come out with a line of clothes designed specifically with gun-toting women in mind.
Mutchnick has been packing heat-currently a .380 Beretta-for 10 years, ever since a series of threatening phone calls she received at work made her fear for her personal safety. She`s a member of the National Rifle Association who has never had to fire her weapon in self-defense. But she practices twice weekly, is training to be an NRA certified weapons instructor and carries her piece with her at all times. During her decade of gun ownership, she`s also discovered one sobering fact: fashion and gun-toting tend to be mutually exclusive concepts.
Too much hip action
”Up until now, most modes of carrying guns have been aimed toward men,” she says, referring specifically to shoulder and hip holsters. ”And I don`t need to tell you that a woman`s physique is so much different from a man`s. When wearing a holster on a belt, the swell of a woman`s hip causes the barrel of a gun to be pushed out, and the butt pushed in, which is very uncomfortable. With a shoulder holster, you have a similar problem, but now you`re dealing with the breast area.”
The few attempts to deal with the problem seemed totally inadequate.
”I`ve seen bra holsters,” she says, ”and holsters that fit on the belly area down in the pants, where you practically have to disrobe to get the gun. By the time you get to it, you could be dead.”
Searching for solutions
So Mutchnick decided to take matters into her own hands. A self-described ”clothes and fashion-conscious” person who ”knows quality,” she sat down earlier this year and began sketching out the problem areas for gun toters, what she calls ”the areas that were being poked, pinched, prodded and jabbed.”
Concentrating on skirts and slacks, with primary emphasis on the waist area, Mutchnick realized that some sort of elasticized rigging would be needed, allowing for expansion of the problem areas without throwing ”the whole garment off whack.” Her solution was to combine a structured waistband with an elastic one, placing adjustable pieces 1 inch apart on each side of the waist. She took the same formula and adapted it to the shoulders on jackets, then came up with a series of specs which would help her determine
”how heavy the elastic and how heavy the interfacing material must be to hold the gun without distorting the shape of the dress.”
By last October, she was ready to roll out her line.
An entire outfit
All of Mutchnick`s fashions are custom-made. She is currently offering skirts, slacks, a vest and two types of jackets, one of which is reversible and can be adapted for right- or left-handed shoulder-holster users. Prices are determined by the type of material used. A basic skirt, made from $6/yard cotton or cotton sateen, costs $110. A jacket can cost up to $275. Mutchnick`s more expensive line is made of wool gabardine, wool crepe or belgian linen, which runs in the $22-$25/yard range. Orders are processed within 6 to 8 weeks. Mutchnick`s clients have included a physician, advertising executive, attorney, bookkeeper and police officer.
Ready to take the heat
Mutchnick has named her line PistolERA, which is something of a triple entendre. It is not only the Spanish word for holster or gunfighter, but evokes the Equal Rights Amendment, even though Mutchnick says she ”is not an activist, not involved with the ERA.”
More than anything, Mutchnick says she came up with the name because of the political situation in 1992, the so-called Year of the Woman. ”We`re doing so many things these days that were closed to us before,” she says. ”I thought with the era of the woman, it would be apropos.”
The creator of the PistolERA line knows her clothes aren`t for everyone. She recognizes that gun ownership is ”a very personal decision that demands responsibility.” She also is tired of feeling uncomfortable every time she straps on her heat. So it`s a personal comfort thing for this postmodern Annie Oakley.
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PistolEra brochures are available at 5760 Corsair Ct., Bensalem, Pa. 19020; or call 215-752-9131.
