Lingerie collection debut

An exciting project, stunning collection and a great opportunity to promote the strength of manufacturing skills the UK has to offer – we can’t wait to see it online!

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Product Development

As one of the UK’s few independent lingerie manufacturing companies, we are regularly approached by designers looking for product development as well as production.  We are fortunate to work with a wealth of fabulous British brands, many of which have great experience of the product development process, as well as a number of new brands who are less experienced but are keen to learn.  Part of our job with these brands is to help them gain experience and to understand the process of making a beautiful pair of knickers, a underwired bra, or a swimsuit fit for luxury department stores and boutiques. We’ve learned to look at each case individually – because we know there are two contrary sides to product development and sampling, one that brings great pleasure and one that can cause much pain!

Creating new products have different elements – starting with the design.  If the designs are unclear the process will be more complex, meaning more time, more resources, more reworking.  When a client comes to us with fully detailed designs and technical specifications we know the project will take less time and resources compared to a client that might bring their vision in the form of a sketch with some inspiration shots – we can work with each scenario but they are different and need different levels of effort and collaboration.

In some cases clients bring patterns they have had produced and expect the first samples to be spot on, but patterns are like puzzles – you don’t always get the correct answer straight away.  We have one of the best Contour schools in the world and it takes three years to graduate in bra design and development.  Graduates come out with great learning and skills, but most still need years of practical experience to hone their skills to a level that qualifies them as specialists in technical design.  Even the most experienced technical designer needs to amend and evolve new projects to get them to the goal of beautiful design and fit.

Ideas are inspiring and it’s amazing to see clients who have such belief and determination and it’s a genuine pleasure to work with so many fabulous lingerie designers and brands.  We have also learnt from experience when to walk away from a project because it’s not the right match – and personalities and expectations tend to play big roles in projects that don’t work out how we had all hoped they might.  When a client brings us a brand concept, some basic CADs and another label’s garment for inspiration we pretty much know it’s not going to work – with us anyway.  We have learnt that’s probably the stage at which we should walk away.

Intimate apparel garments can often take several reworks before they are good to go.  It’s tempting to rush it but more haste ultimately means less where product development is involved.  On a recent project one bra was re-worked 6 times – the client is big and bras are their business – they  understand what’s involved and it was a pleasure being able to work with them to get it perfect and to see how passionate they are about their product.

And that, for us, is what it is really all about – the passion.  Passion for the product, the design, the concept, the fit, the brand.  It’s so rewarding to see the excitement that delivering new samples brings, even when it’s the early stages of the process and the sample is just a shape, but the client can see beyond the shape and can see their design coming to life.  Even when things take a while to reach perfection, you’ve got to keep at it – collaboration between the designer and the production team is all important. Sometimes painful – but always with a purpose. When a client emails over the first few sneaky pictures from a shoot or the draft of lookbook it’s wonderful to know that we can help them bring their creativity to life.  When a product appears on a cover of a magazine or in a music video and we know that it originated in our factory in Alfreton we can’t help but feel a sense of achievement.  And when reorders happen because stockists have sold out then you, everyone is doing something right.

Lingerie, Loungewear, Swimwear – new shapes, new collections, new fabrics, new designers, new brands, new technology – its constantly evolving.  And so the sampling continues, the development wheel keeps on turning and those who understand what’s to come will enjoy the ride that starts with the end of each season and the beginning of the new one.

Sometimes the pleasure cannot come without the pain, as avid readers of Fifty Shades will testify, but if you understand the need for the pain you will feel the pleasure so much more. SS13 is looking hot … thank you to all of our clients who trusted us with their new collections!

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Orbit Apparel On The Radio

Interview with Kelly Isaac From Orbit Apparel On BBC Radio, talking about the current  state of UK Manufacturing Lingerie.

Click here to listen

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Kinky Knickers

This week saw the launch of a three part documentary featuring the retail and branding guru Mary Portas which we have been eagerly anticipating since the show’s production company Endemol contacted us about the project back in October 2011. When they contacted us, Endemol suggested Mary wanted to do a series about British lingerie manufacturing, which we, as one of the handful of British lingerie manufacturing companies in existence, were naturally excited about.  When we spoke with them a couple of months later they informed us that the project had taken a different route, the one we will witness over the next few weeks.

In March of this year Mary launched the end result of her efforts, Kinky Knickers, at the luxury department store Liberty and which coincidentally is just around the corner from the independent boutique of our sister company, The Lingerie Collective. We popped along to the launch and had a chance to chat briefly to Mary, and as a result of that conversation to secure some time with a representative from her PR company Yellow Door.  We met a few weeks later and discussed Mary, the Bottom Line programme and her efforts to support British manufacturing. We hope that the combination of our inside industry view and discussions with Yellow Door will enable us to be a little more informed than some, and of interest to many, including Mary herself.

The programme follows Mary’s journey, the goal of which we are told is to bring lingerie manufacturing back to Britain and with over £2.6 billion being spent each year on underwear, a tiny amount of which is actually produced here, she has a valid point.  In episode one we witnessed Mary locate and set about reopening and staffing a disused lingerie factory in Middleton which is located outside Manchester and which it is fair to say looks like an unfortunate part of the world that has been horribly affected by the relocation of British manufacturing overseas.  Fortunately for Mary the company, which still operates a design and sampling service, had everything needed in place, including the factory owner Lynn, who appears early in the programme with the stereotypical tape measure around her neck.  Our first question at this point was why, why have you stopped producing Lynn?  We opened our factory in 2007 – yet here you are with everything in place having off-shored your business and you have chosen not to continue producing when there is demand out there. Believe us, the likes of ourselves and AJM Sewing in Wales are real life examples of that – made possible by the decisions of immensely talented British lingerie labels such as Ayten Gasson, Bordelle, Dirty Pretty Things, Ell & Cee, Fleur of England, Gilda & Pearl, Lascivious, MC Lounge, Mint Siren and Yes Master to name but a few, as well as the likes of Figleaves, Harrods and Selfridges continuing to support British lingerie production.

It’s heart wrenching to see such destruction and decay and we sympathise with Mary when a few tears are shed.  No wonder a mass of candidates turned up to try and make it through the interview process to the final eight.  The filming of the interviews was a little painful, and slightly patronizing, but so are the X Factor auditions and millions of viewers tune in to delight in others’ humiliation every week so it is a trusted media formula.  We only wish that we could have the same magic effect when we try and recruit – although hopefully Bottom Line will help young unemployed people consider factory work as a respectable form of employment.  What is important here is to recognise that Mary, whatever her true agenda, is momentarily shining a bit of light and hope on a part of the world that appears to have very little of either.

The star of episode one appeared to be Andrew and we understand that – any programme like this needs an emotional pull and Andrew god bless him has a decent amount of emotional pull!  Luckily for Andrew he could also handle a lockstitch machine, a necessary skill for any seamstress – which causes us to ask the question, do we need a new politically correct term for 2012 given that according to the dictionary the word seamstress refers to a woman who’s job is making or sewing clothes.  For us, the star of episode one was the candidate who had been trained in engineering.  If that was his first time on an overlock machine he’s welcome in our factory any day of the week!

The actual product is a nice enough, slightly basic pair of stretch lace knickers.  Mary locates what appears to be the only remaining company set up to produce lace in the UK – we were surprised and delighted to see it, and we hope that his order book will be booming as a result. There are hints that he may have some delivery issues which will come to light in episode two, and for those of us who produce in the UK we know this pain – it’s part and parcel of the process and that’s where good planning and working closely with your clients and your suppliers is of the utmost importance.  Mary’s knickers appear to use no elastic, which is a shame as it would have been an ideal opportunity for Moll UK to get a little bit of recognition – Moll are possibly the only company left in the UK producing elastic. Were it not for Moll, a huge number of British lingerie companies would struggle to source one of the most important components of their collections.

The design process will have in all honesty take no more than half a day – if it did Mary was conned.  No offence to those involved but this product is basic and although Mary’s goal is to produce a mid-point product that is accessible and will generate a patriotic wave of consumer behaviour we were disappointed with the end result. Mary could have again used this opportunity to highlight British skills by engaging De Montfort, the best contour school in the world which churns out so much lingerie design talent it’s unreal – perhaps bringing some talented fortunate young people training in Leicester together with some hopeful, motivated but less fortunate young people from Middleton would have been inspirational for all involved.  Mary’s management style is unique, but then so are most and Mary hasn’t achieved what she has by being a wallflower – you have to respect her drive and determination.

Before the programme aired there was a wave of anger from within the British lingerie industry that Mary had overlooked the companies who are producing in the UK and who are supporting British manufacturing.  We too were feeling a little bit pissed off at the statement which suggested Mary was ‘turning the lights back on for British manufacturing’ – given that the lights have not in fact gone out – but Mary appears to be focused on doing this on a mass scale.  It is a shame that Mary didn’t use this project to highlight all the amazing companies that do exist and who do so because they love their product and because they want to manufacture in Britain – regardless of the challenges that brings of which there are many.  The majority of companies who do manufacture their products here are most definitely in the mid to high end of the sector with most starting prices being in the £20-£40 mark, not £10.  The difference we believe between those products and Kinky Knickers is that they are beautiful and aspirational and some of those, like the Ell & Cee bridal knickers, did at one time sell in Liberty, when it still had a lingerie department.

Most of the brands who manufacture in this country use fabrics that are not produced here and while we respect Mary’s determination and ability to source stretch lace made in Britain we don’t think any less of those companies who source fabrics from other countries – ourselves included. Perhaps this is just one of those differences between reality and TV.  Again, perhaps Bottom Line will create the demand that is necessary for the tide to turn and as a  result see a resurgence of fabric production, not just garment production, here in the UK.

And there episode one ended,  leaving the majority of those who watched it, according to our quick analysis of Twitter, feeling motivated and supportive and thinking a little bit more about where their knickers were made.  Some people found it patronizing but is that surprising? What Mary is doing could just be pretty damn good if it doesn’t lose momentum and the big retail players pay attention.  And for those of us already doing it, yes it would have been better, in our opinion, if the researchers had taken the time to really understand what is already happening here in Britain and to promote that effort rather than that of Mary alone. To have acknowledged that it hasn’t all gone east, that there are independent British lingerie companies like us who are very proud to be supporting our country and keeping lights – that hadn’t quite gone out – most definitely on!

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Manufacturing in the UK

Over recent years, the Made in the UK label has benefited from an increased rarity value. But, as the cost of labour abroad continues to soar, we talk to a few of the remaining intimate apparel manufacturers in the country to discover whether UK industry could be set to stage a comeback.

Read the full article online  - Lingerie Insight

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Enfants Terribles

03 October 2011

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