Photos: Chris Emeott
Edina fashionista brings her own flair to the pickleball court.
Terrie Rose felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath her feet. The year was 2020, and her beloved husband, Larry, unexpectedly passed away only a few years before they were to retire. Rose’s grief therapist suggested she try an activity to get her out of the house and back into the community. Then, in winter 2022, she found pickleball. “I was really looking for a way to be social, to be active, to be with other people,” Rose says.
Rose has always been something of a fashionista. “I always love having an outfit that matches the sport I’m playing,” she says. When she started playing pickleball, she noticed most of the women on the court were wearing yoga pants.
“I didn’t really want to wear my yoga clothes playing pickleball,” Rose says. “I started sorting through what I did have from golf and from other sports to start pulling together outfits.”
Saltie Rose’s leading ladies are founder, Terrie Rose (in pink) and managing director of operations, Kelly Streit (in blue).
But what Rose had wasn’t pickleball-specific, so she made outfits herself. “I started sewing when I was 6,” she says. “It’s always been something that I’d done on the side whether it was costumes in high school for the plays or my kids’ Halloween costumes, so I went and found fabrics and I started making things.”
Rose would make a new outfit every time she played and would ask her teammates what they thought. “They would say, ‘Oh, if you made that in my size I’d buy that,’” she says. That was Rose’s “Aha!” moment.
Harnessing Lifelong Potential
Rose was a psychologist for decades, working with professionals and organizations to improve outcomes for children and families. After COVID-19 and the passing of her husband, she was looking in a new direction. “I really felt like I had done everything I had wanted to do,” she says. “I had completed that.”
Rose looked back on her life and decided to name her pickleball clothing after everything that got her to this point—Saltie Rose.
Saltie Rose debuted with vibrant colors, but the line is expanding this fall to include player-requested blue and black. The new collection can also be worn with the original line.
“Saltie comes from my pickleball journey, which is really about moving from tears of grief to beads of sweat,” she says. “And Rose is in honor of my husband because I wouldn’t be doing this otherwise. I’d be doing whatever our trajectory was supposed to be as just the plain, nearing retirement couple.”
With the name chosen and market research complete, Rose was excited. “Fashion brands and athletic brands aren’t thinking about women that are my age or even women that are 40. Nobody is thinking about us,” she says. “We’ve been told that our ideas and our needs aren’t that important. What we want to do is say, ‘We are a force to be reckoned with.’”
Saltie Rose Pickleball Tote
To get the company off the ground, Rose reached out to her friend Kelly Streit, who had spent the last two decades raising her son and daughter. Now as an empty nester, the call from Rose came at the perfect time.
“To be doing something on my own is amazing and learning new skills at my age (I’m 52) is just so wonderful,” Streit, managing director of operations, says. “Terrie’s confidence is amazing. “
They also reached out to Rose’s daughter, Rebecca, who works in Los Angeles as a graphic artist and photographer. Together they found a manufacturer in Los Angeles who would make the clothes and a textile mill in the U.S. to provide the material.
Saltie Rose Performance Pickleball Socks
“We’re using recycled fabrics. We’re manufactured in the U.S.,” Rose says. “I wanted to create something that I was proud of that represented who I am now.”
Rose says she wants her company to be more than a brand. She wants to turn it into a community. Saltie Rose also has Saltie Sisters, a series of pickleball events for beginners. Rose and Streit also want to give back to the community, so pickleball socks benefit women’s mental health research. Saltie Rose’s website features stories of countless women and why they adore pickleball.
“Every story is important,” Rose says. “We are never too young to follow a dream or too old. It’s time for women that are over the age of 40 to have a place say, ‘You are important. You are being heard.’”
Left to right: Saltie Rose founder Terrie Rose with models Sue Johnston and Betsy Kumagai, and managing director of operations, Kelly Streit.
Rose says the clothing line is a love letter to the pickleball community. “It’s the one place I’ve been where people have been, ‘That was a great shot!’ when I won the point. It’s this wonderful camaraderie about both being competitive and supportive in a way I had not really experienced before,” she says.
Made for Movement
Saltie Rose launched in April with a mix-and-match collection that features buttery, stretchy material.
“The line has a lot of vibrant colors in it,” Rose says, “I want all my friends to look as powerful as they play … and everybody can show up confidently on the court. We have ways in which we can create athletic wear that is pickleball specific. There’s a lot of bending over at the kitchen line. We want to make sure everyone’s comfortable doing that, managing heat or being cool, all of those things.”
More inventory is coming this fall, including items in blue and black. Rose and Streit are excited to watch the company grow before their eyes.
“What I really wanted to reflect in the pickleball community is the joy we feel when we’re playing and being a part of this community,” Rose says. She then takes a deep breath, smiles and says Saltie Rose is the answer to a question that used to keep her up at night: “How do we as women want to show up on that court and play the best game we can play?”
Saltie Rose
Instagram: @saltierose
