Under achiever

hen Jacalyn Bennett looks at lingerie, she's thinking of some unlikely models. Mahatma Gandhi and Carl Jung, to name two.

The founder and president of Bennett and Company, a quiet leader in ladies' intimates based in Newburyport, Bennett has always chosen the high road. A longtime supplier to Frederick's of Hollywood, Victoria's Secret, and dozens of other retailers, she has built an empire on silk, lace, and a healthy dose of philosophy. Her huge home in the woods of West Newbury doubles as a meditation retreat, and she counts the Dalai Lama among her many influential friends.

``The body is sculpture, the most amazing creation on the planet," Bennett said on a recent morning as she gave a visitor a tour of the company's red brick, ivy-covered office along the Newburyport waterfront. Intimate apparel, she says, is essentially another path to self-fulfillment: ``We're in the garment industry, but it's really a platform for people to learn who they are in the world."

Bennett, the youngest recipient of the Fashion Institute of Technology's Outstanding Alumni Award, has been designing clothing for 30 years. She founded Bennett and Company in 1989, creating private labels for such clothing giants as Chico's, Kohl's, and Sara Lee; she only recently began producing a lingerie collection bearing her own name.

``I like my anonymity," she says.

To date Bennett and Company claims to have produced more than 100 million pieces of apparel, including bras and panties, camisoles, gowns, kimonos, and pajamas, at an estimated worth of $2.5 billion. The company owns four buildings in downtown Newburyport .

The natural beauty of Boston's North Shore was key to Bennett's decision to establish her business outside of her native New York, she says, stepping onto an open-air balcony off a top-floor conference room in the main building.

``People really love coming to work here," she said.

Inside, members of the design team are discussing a thank-you e-mail they've just received from Home Shopping Network personality Rhonda Shear , a recent visitor. ``I'm still panting over all the beauty," she wrote.

Bennett thinks of the lingerie business as an art form.

``The garment industry is not really fashion," she says. ``It's math and architecture." It's also about problem-solving. ``We're designing for women from 15 to 65, from all walks of life, at all price points. It's complicated. All of us by nature must love to solve problems."

Besides launching its own collection, Bennett and Company recently became the exclusive supplier to Soma, a rapidly growing chain of mature women's lingerie shops owned by Chico's, and to Jigsaw, a U.K.-based women's clothing retailer.

In addition to some 70 employees in Massachusetts, the company employs about 1,800 at production facilities in China and Sri Lanka . Contrary to the trend toward downsizing and automation, Bennett and Company specializes in labor-intensive designs featuring beading, lacework, and intricate prints and patterns.

``The company is based on Gandhian principles -- we use as much manpower as possible," says Bennett, who refers to her employees and clients as her ``family." (Married three times, she has no children but is godmother to 18 of her friends' kids .)

``We're trying to keep the old ways alive. Especially with intimates, it's really noticeable when things are hand-done. We're constantly retraining the Chinese and our own people to re-learn what their grandparents did."

And her customers take notice. ``So far, everything has been a knockout," says Merit Tukiainen , owner of Night and Day Lingerie, a three-year-old shop in Andover that recently began carrying items from the signature Jacalyn Bennett collection.

``The pricing is very good for the quality of the workmanship and the fabrics," Tukiainen says. ``And the styling is unbelievable -- very flattering. Women are looking for certain things in lingerie. They want to be somewhat covered and supported, and they want to feel they're showing off their best."

Bennett climbs into her Range Rover -- a ``Free Tibet" sticker on the back windshield -- and heads to her home in West Newbury, where the long basement doubles as an adjunct design studio. One wing of the house is devoted to guest rooms in which clients often stay.

When she arrives, she is greeted by her Belgian sheepdog, Shanti, who bounds across the opulent great room. Here, the company president sometimes invites her entire staff to participate in painting classes. The house, she says, was designed to be inspirational: ``It's art and nature."

In the cutthroat world of the garment industry, Bennett follows the lead of her late father, a Brooklyn lawyer who took pro bono cases for causes in which he believed. From Lao Tse to Gandhi, Bennett notes, she is a student of great men.

Yet the business itself, rooted in the founder's holistic approach and her acute sensitivity to detail, is all feminine.

``We have a lot of what you'd perhaps call female energy," she says.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in yesterday's Style & Arts section about Newburyport lingerie designers Bennett and Company misidentified the company as the exclusive supplier to retailers Soma and Jigsaw. Bennett and Company is a supplier to those companies, but does not have an exclusive agreement.