Founder Vera Watkins Shares How Marena Started

Marena was born from an Olympians desire to heal faster and better and my desire to help others. Sewn passionately by me in the garage of my North Atlanta home, I discovered the amazing healing properties of comfortable targeted compression while collaborating with health professionals. Marena, named for our children Mark and Lena, has become a global leader in medical grade compression.

Marena was initially founded with the business model to re-sell compression products already available in the market. As a business owner, I could control my future and be able to take time for the important events in life while providing a high-quality product. Shortly after launch, I discovered that most fabrics used for compression were not comfortable and many of the styles were not constructed with comfort in mind. I will never consciously sell or produce something that I know is not comfortable or not the best it can be, so we re-evaluated our business model.

Within one year, we secured the required sewing and cutting equipment to produce garments with both comfort, and function in mind. Then in only two years, Marena had our first version of our revolutionary and proprietary fabric developed, which revolutionized comfort in compression. When combined with our proprietary pattern making and fit, we knew we had something special: a product that performed better than the industry.