We hosted a Christmas party in November, bringing together lingerie and swimwear brands and industry experts!
In our ten years of operation, my company Intimate Apparel Samples has built a strong client base of new and established swimwear and lingerie brands. We have helped more designers than ever this year to develop and manufacture their collections. We have also increased our offering to Athleisure for Sportswear designers and have expanded our capacity for Small Runs Production.
My team and I are in a very privileged position of building great relationships with contour brands catering for various markets including mastectomy bras, nursing underwear, plus size lingerie, men’s undies, haute couture, plus size swimwear, sports bras, and running tights, pole dancing costumes, to name a few. Each client is at a different point along their business journey allowing us to truly understand the aspirations and challenges brands face.
I firmly believe in ‘power in numbers’ and supporting one another, therefore it has been a long term desire of mine to bring together like-minded designers and fashion entrepreneurs to connect and collaborate.
Finally finding the courage to do it (it only took me a decade!) and with full enthusiasm from my team, we threw our first Christmas party and informal networking event in November 2019 at the wonderful Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair, London.
Limited to just 60 designers and industry experts, all spaces were snapped up within 2 weeks.
The night was a raving success! My team and I were buzzing for days after and the feedback from fellow designers and brand owners was overwhelmingly positive. Our mission to unite people in the industry has come to fruition, with designers since attending trade shows together and sharing tips on how to thrive in the Intimate Apparel & Swimwear industry.
A common theme amongst attendees was their difficulty in finding reliable fabric and component suppliers (we give you tips on this here), large scale lingerie or swimwear manufacturing in the UK. They also often felt they were not moving fast enough in business. Can you relate to any of these?
New brand owners often feel alone and suffer Imposter Syndrome! Imposter Syndrome is feeling like a fraud and not worthy of your success. I can sympathise with this as the first few years of establishing my business I felt this too but as you meet others who have similar fears and have made their own mistakes (which of course do not get broadcasted on Instagram!) you become to realise you are simply human.
Long gone are the days of ‘dog eat dog’ in business and we can now be more collaborative. Each designer and brand have their unique handwriting through their designs, brand, and story and so long as we remain true to our message we will stand out in a crowd of creatives.
This is just the beginning! We too, are on a journey and would love you to join our newsletter to receive invites to future parties or our casual weekday drinks.
Help us unite this industry together.
