Grocer's son shuns dry goods.

• Position: Swimsuit designer Loren Laney - Tar Heel Tattler

"My son the swimsuit designer" might not have the same ring as more traditional occupations, but it really doesn't bother Ingles Markets' President Landy Laney, contrary to a recent People story.

In an article about his son Loren, who's hot in New York fashion circles, People quoted Loren as saying: "Dad's finally happy with what I'm doing. Getting into business."

"I don't know why he said that," responds Landy Laney, who has been president of the Asheville-based grocery chain for 12 years. "As long as my children are happy doing whatever they're doing, it's fine with me."

Loren Laney certainly is a free spirit. He left Asheville at 15 to attend Winston-Salem's North Carolina School of the Arts and, later, New York's School of American Ballet. He then switched to drama and graduated from a British academy.

In New York, he landed a fashion-editing job at Elle magazine, where he stayed seven years. He was moonlighting last January as a stylist for a Bain de Soleil suntan-lotion layout when he learned the product managers didn't like the swimsuits used in the ad. So Laney and a friend, Bradford Moody, created a suit that was "sexy, but didn't...