When Dr. Hilary Gallin’s protective goggles slipped off during a medical procedure involving a laser, the incident left her temporarily blind in one eye.

“And so I went to the emergency room and luckily I’m okay,” Gallin said. “But what then happened was it took me another several months to get goggles that fit me. They just weren’t available for women. They were too heavy. Nothing was really made for women.”

Frustrated, Gallin turned to her friend Kaitlin McCarthy — founder and CEO of Boston-based Ionic Development Company — to brainstorm a solution.

“Ever since my first day on a jobsite, I have felt like the PPE was very obviously not meant for me,” McCarthy said. “The vest was 10 sizes too big, the boots are awkward, the hats are clunky.”

Their shared frustration grew into ARX, a new women-owned brand focused on personal protective equipment designed specifically for women. Launched in May, ARX currently sells a high-visibility vest for $55, with plans to roll out more gear soon.

“We want to be your one-stop shop and your trusted resource for head-to-toe PPE for women,” Gallin said. “That can mean everything from goggles and gloves and a vest to our next product — actually a long sleeved kind of athleisure, like an athletic-style shirt for the construction site.”

The ARX founders didn’t just rely on their own experiences — they also conducted interviews with women in the field to get real feedback. Their research showed that simply offering smaller sizes isn’t enough: women’s bodies are proportioned differently, so pockets and features need to be rethought too.

“The women in our focus groups just wanted to look like everybody else,” McCarthy said, explaining that flashy colors like pink didn’t make workers feel included on jobsites.

“They don’t want it to be pink. We had played around with different design ideas for the stripes and the reflective tape. And they just wanted to look like everybody else,” she said.

Functionality was equally important. That’s why their vest includes features like a discrete shoulder pocket — dubbed the “tampon pocket.”

“One of the problems that we heard was people would take stuff out of their pockets and a tampon would fall out,” McCarthy said. The design ensures women have storage that’s private yet practical.

The timing couldn’t be better. A new OSHA rule that went into effect in January now requires construction contractors to provide properly fitting PPE to workers, aligning with requirements already in place for general industry.

Gallin said the most rewarding feedback has come from safety managers and superintendents who are relieved to finally have better options for their crews.

“They said, ‘You know, I felt really disingenuous doing my job, handing something to a new employee that didn’t fit as well as it should. And saying, okay, well this should protect you,’” Gallin said. “And so it’s been interesting to kind of have the conversation both with the female user, but also a safety manager who says, ‘I now feel better because there is something that I can stand by and give to my employee.’”
ARX’s founders say their mission goes beyond just selling gear — they’re advocating for workplace equity and inclusion, too. The company is in talks with large contractors and trade groups to help them meet compliance and keep more women safe on the job. ARX also plans to partner with training programs to educate employers about the importance of fit-tested PPE, hoping to make ill-fitting safety gear a thing of the past for the next generation of tradeswomen.

Originally reported by Zachary Phillips in Construction Dive.