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(CBS News) Sara Blakely, inventor of the line of slimming garments called Spanx, is one of the newest names on Forbes magazine's list of billionaires.
Blakely is the youngest woman to make the Forbes list on her own,with no help from a husband or an inheritance.
She said on "CBS This Morning" that she's grateful to be a woman in America. "I've always had that gratitude that I had the opportunity to pursue my potential," she said. "So I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver. We can make the world a better place, one butt at a time."
The initial idea for Spanx came, Blakely said, when she didn't like the way her rear end looked in a pair of white pants.
"(Pantylines are) a real problem for women," Blakely said. "I couldn't figure out what to wear under my clothes. The body shapers were too thick at the time. They almost felt like wearing workout clothes under your beautiful clothes. So, I cut the feet out of control top pantyhose one night, threw them on under my white pants and realized that the toning and shaping was perfect and that the hosiery material is thin enough that I could make shape wear out of it."
Blakely's products have largely been popularized by word of mouth, but really caught on when stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Oprah Winfrey began to make Spanx a household name. "It's the power of the brand," Blakely said. "We've never formally advertised."
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