Our secret weapon: the factory.

Our secret weapon: the factory.

 

 

Saying it is hard work to find a manufacturer suitable for your brand is an understatement. 

For SURE. Especially as complete newbies entering the lingerie industry. Being early/mid-twenties, blonde and a woman (times 2x) also didn’t really help. But luckily, we don’t shy away from a challenge! 

As a lingerie start-up, it is crucial to find a manufacturer who understands your vision (we’re dreaming big baby!) and is capable of producing high-quality lingerie that meets your requirements. We spent many hours (months actually, but who’s counting) searching for the perfect lingerie manufacturer that was suitable for our needs. In this blog post, we will share our journey and explain how we ultimately found our ideal manufacturer. 

Our sourcing journey started with visiting fabric fairs in London and Paris. 

As much fun as it was to visit the fairs and to meet with suppliers (and to travel obviously) – we also very soon realized how difficult it would be to make our plans work.  

As you can imagine, you won’t need thousands of stock units to start with as a new fashion brand – we wish! But unfortunately for us, every supplier has certain minimum order qty’s that we need to hit when placing orders. As there is only a very small amount of fabric going into your panties, you have to produce a LOT of stock to hit the fabric minimums. 

It was also only then that we realized how many freaking components a bra actually has. (Fun fact: there are about 35 pieces and 60 seams in a bra – all with their own functions. I know… shocking!) After 3-4 full fair days, we finally ticked off our ‘sourcing list’. GREAT. We got all the components. On to the next: a factory that can actually do something with it.  

There are a lot of factors involved when looking for the perfect manufacturer for your products: location, language, quality, price, machinery – there is a very long list I can tell ya. 

We approached several manufacturers and requested samples to evaluate the quality of their work. After visiting the factories and checking the samples, we excluded some of the manufacturers due to the quality of their work. 

For us personally, it was also very important that the factory had the same type of passion for lingerie as we did. (It was so difficult to trust someone with our designs (read: our baby AKA absolute masterpiece.) Besides that, we were really interested in working with a manufacturer that we could build a good connection and long-term relationship with instead of just a business partner that could produce our lingerie collection.  

After a couple of visits, we decided to start working with a factory close to Porto, in Portugal. 

The perfect location as a lot of clothing manufacturing is done in the area, meaning there is a lot of expertise over there and we could work with the local suppliers for the materials. also, not to forget: the food and wine is absolutely lush over there – 10/10!

As soon as we walked into the factory, we knew we found the perfect lingerie manufacturer. We instantly had a great connection with the team and they met all our specific production requirements.

We were over the moon that we found a good (business) match: a factory that helped us realizing our dreams. A team led by women, with all the same lingerie passion. Their attention to detail is incredible and we appreciate their willingness to work with us to achieve our vision <3. And they like us to it appears…to hear that the girls in the sampling room are actually fighting over who’s working on our products is unreal! 

In a very short amount of time, we traveled 4-5 times to meet up with the factory and to work on the fit of our products together. With No as our fabulous fitting model, we made design changes and adjusted the patterns. 2-3 weeks later, when the new samples were ready to be fitted, we did it again. And again. Until the collection was looking and fitting absolutely PERFECT. Settling for less wasn’t an option! (yes we do have a great list of restaurant recommendations by now in case you’re wondering….)

We always are so looking forward to our next trip to Portugal and having our fit sessions with the factory. Nothing more fun than seeing designs turning into products and being involved in the whole process from beginning until end. 

Talk soon again,
No & Ya