Before getting into the nitty gritty of what the differences are between designing for ‘ready-to-wear’ and ‘bespoke’ lingerie, it’s important to first nail down what these phrases actually mean. In a world dominated by fast fashion and half-truth marketing, a lot of the technical terminology around clothing has had its meaning diluted and distorted. This is particularly true of the language around luxury fashion, which is often co-opted by fast […]
As a lingerie designer and maker, one of my greatest pet peeves is hearing bras dismissed as “just two small pieces of fabric.” It totally disregards the complexities and skills required to create these garments, as well as just being factually incorrect! I’ve been running my lingerie brand for nearly a decade now, and still individually hand make my bra designs. It can easily take a few hours to create […]
The idea of a sample size is fraught with emotion for some people, but as we learned in Part 1 of this series, most samples aren’t meant to be seen by the customer and have nothing to do with the “ideal” human form. Samples are simply garment prototypes, sewn before a style goes into mass production. We also learned that all brands, even those known for having multiple sample sizes […]
In the lingerie and apparel industry, sample garments are an everyday part of the production process. But for consumers, samples and the idea of a “sample size” are fraught with emotion. As the internet lifts the veil between the customer and the design team, more consumers are seeing samples in action and wondering: Why do they not sample in my size? If a brand makes samples in a small size, […]
Have you ever seen the same garment in a few different places, but with different brands or no brand at all? Many people assume that means some dubious – or even illegal! – copying going on, but today I’ll let you in on 5 secret industry processes you might have never known about before now! Yes, you read that right! There are at least 5 different ways identical products can […]
