In 1991, Dan Stock and Bob Truax decided to create a functional pair of shorts. The two owned a weightlifting gym and wanted to develop a pair of shorts that could expand and stretch to accommodate the bulging muscles of the bodybuilders. They called the shorts Zubaz and they caught on and Stock and Truax quickly found themselves in a need to mass produce them. They received orders from J. C. Penney and the National Football League and turned to the Minnesota Corrections Institute to have female inmates stitch them together.

Zuba is a word that had come to mean "in your face" and the people who bought them seemed not to care that the short were brightly colored and very flashy. So many people bought the shorts that Stock and Truax eventually had to open new plants to keep up with demand as they broadened their product line to include caps, shirts, diapers and long pants and sold $100 million in 1991.