AP News
April 2001
PRINCE WILLIAM , Va.
Their 15 minutes of fame - This one's for the birds
Couple rides wave of publicity with bird diaper invention.

When Andy Warhol commented that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, even the prescient painter probably did not figure that "everyone" included diaper-wearing birds.

But it does.

The Quantico-based makers of the FlightSuit, the outfit that keeps the bird doo off you, have gone nationwide and are ready to break loose across the world.

Mark and Lorraine Moore started Avian Fashions in the mid-1990s. Since then, their bird diapers and bird costumes have appeared in newspapers, magazines and television programs from Washington, D.C., to Arizona and even an episode of National Geographic Explorer. Coming this spring: a spot on the Animal Planet network's "Twisted Tales."

There have been more than 57,000 visits to the company's doody-intensive Web site - www.birddiaper.com - where stars turn into green splotches when clicked and the toll free phone number ends with a P, two Os and another P.

The company's messy shade of fame has grown so large it sparked a mini-backlash, via a short spot in March on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." While words like "crushing" and "reality" are rarely used positively together, the Moores don't seem to mind the roasting.

"We're laughing all the way to the bank," Mark Moore said.

According to U.S. Patent No. 5,934,226, the FlightSuit is "for an uncaged pet bird to wear, featuring an enclosed pouch for receiving and containing [um, stuff], and apertures to accommodate both the wings and the tail of the bird."

Birds do their business as often as every 15 minutes. But FlightSuits will keep pets and owners clean and comfortable for up to six hours as they experience life outside the cage together, said the Moores, who own four birds of their own.

The outfits come in 14 sizes, from petite for small birds like the American parakeet, to colossal for larger macaws or the mighty Rodan. The colors are similarly variable, ranging from sedate gray to eye-sizzling yellow.

Equipping a tiny bird costs $19.95, while clothing a mutated pteranodon will set you back just $23.95.

Avian Fashions also offers diapers lined with fleece for the colder months and costume diaper outfits including the patriotic Uncle Sammy Bird, the adorable Birdie Bunny and the authority-flouting Hippie Birdie.

It was the Tux with Tails that caught the attention of the folks behind the Internet search engine GoTo.com. They rented a parrot and had it photographed in Avian Fashions' red bird tuxedo and top hat for the front of the annual report sent to about 35,000 shareholders in spring 2000.

"I think what we were trying to communicate is that you can find it on GoTo, even a red tuxedo for a parrot, which seems like a pretty obscure thing," said GoTo.com spokeswoman Kasey Byrne.

And can humans handle birds puttin' on the Ritz? "You know, people love it." Byrne said her employer eschewed the normal bird diaper because it - somehow - lacked the "unusualness" GoTo.com was looking for.

The device has historically been underappreciated. It was first patented in the 1950s by a Milwaukee woman who never marketed the idea. For decades, its only place was on lists of dumb inventions. Even advice columnist Ann Landers heaped scorn upon the bird diaper.

A renaissance of sorts began in 1996 while the Moores were posted in San Diego with the U.S. Navy. Lorraine Moore belonged to a prayer group with seamstress Cely Giron. Both women were bird lovers and wanted to give their pets more freedom to roam.

They "put their heads together," Lorraine Moore said, and came up with the Lycra bird diaper with Velcro fasteners.

"There's nothing that you can actually put on a bird ... to take care of the mess while they're outside the cage. There's quite a bit to clean up," added the U.S. Naval Reserves nurse. "We knew we were onto something because there wasn't anything like that on the market."

The Moores moved to Watkins Glen, N.Y., in June 1996. Reaction to the suits at rest stops and restaurants along the way convinced the couple they had a marketable product. After an attorney found no existing patents on the bird diaper, the company Web site went up Jan. 1, 1997, and sales began.

Early on, there was more griping than buying from bird owners.

"At first it was not a positive response on the Web: `If you don't love your bird poop you don't love your bird,'" Lorraine Moore said. "A lot of e-mail. A lot of scolding e-mail."

Despite the response, the Moores moved forward with their plans. They obtained a provisional patent for the FlightSuit and then went for a full patent in August 1999. The final patent alone cost $4,000 - add in previous start-up funding and other costs and the couple had invested their entire savings in the project.

"At the time it was all of it. It was a leap of faith," Mark Moore said.

The company has grown steadily over a few years, now operating from a converted bedroom in the Moores' Quantico Marine Corps Base apartment and using contracted sewers in the United States and the Phillippines.

Avian Fashions receives 100 to 125 orders a week, from as far away as England and Saudi Arabia. And the outfits aren't just for birds you don't eat: there's been interest in clothing ducks and chickens.

As the public acceptance of the bird diaper grew it didn't take long for the media to sit up and take notice. The buzz began slowly with a 1997 article in the entrepreneurial trade magazine Income Opportunities. "Not exactly our target audience," Mark Moore said.

Since moving to Prince William in June 1998, Avian Fashions has been featured in the Washington Post (twice) and several other regional newspapers, two television news programs and Washingtonian magazine.

A National Geographic special on parrots aired in spring 1999 with several uncredited appearances by the bird diaper. A film crew from New Zealand came to Prince William last year to film some clips for a "Twisted Tales" episode on parrots that will appear in May or June.

There is an easy explanation for the attention, the Moores said: The bird diaper is unique, especially as a low-tech innovation in a high-tech world.

Mark Moore, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander working with the Marine Corps at Quantico, said he initially wasn't sure he wanted the FlightSuit to be his public legacy. "Now I take it in stride and it's a lot of fun."

The latest burst of publicity came when the syndicated show First Business profiled Avian Fashions on March 1. News shows in Arizona, Illinois and other states also picked up parts of the show. The Daily Show did the same, for its own diabolical purposes.

"It was just an outrageous kind of thing we felt we had to use it," said Comedy Central spokesman Steve Albani "A diaper for birds? It's absurd!"

Not absurd, Mark Moore said, but rather a distinctly American success story.

"Anything is possible, especially in the United States."