The Intimate Business of Sustainable and Ethical Lingerie
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The Intimate Business of Sustainable and Ethical Lingerie

Stephanie Steele Saturday, 1 August 2020

Underwear and lingerie is inherently personal, with markets across the board for functional or sexy, eco and quick. In this session we want to dive deeper into how underwear and lingerie can affect our mood, how sales have changed over lockdown and specifically how you go about launching a sustainable or ethical underwear and lingerie brand.

This live panel discussion first aired on 18th May 2020, 7-8pm.

Guest Speakers:

First guest: Nicola Hopkins, Bold Intimates

Bold Intimates is an expert product development studio for lingerie and swimwear brands, offering technical and sustainable solutions. After working for over a decade in the intimate apparel sector honing her technical skill and knowledge, founder Nicola Hopkins created Bold Intimates through her desire to consciously restore and regenerate a product development system that is relevant to our world today.

Second guest: Katie and Amanda McCourt, PANTEE

PANTEE is the world’s first underwear brand that gives dead and rejected stock a new lease of life by transforming pre-consumer t-shirts, that would otherwise go to landfill, into comfortable and stylish underwear. Founded in 2020 by sisters, Amanda & Katie McCourt, PANTEE products are designed and brought to life in the UK.

Third guest: Maïna Cisse, The Underargument

Maïna dreamt about bras from age 5. When others little girls dreamt of being princesses, she dreamt about being grown-up, being a 34C (very specifically) and having her first bra. Getting older, lingerie was therapy to her. It’s always been her go-to pick me up. Her rebellious attitude combined with her multicultural background helped shape a brand that thrives to empower women with their own individuality.

[Header image: shoot from Organic Basics]

In this video you'll learn:

  • The different ways an underwear brand can class themselves as sustainable
  • How underwear designers source their materials, ranging from recycled t-shirts to fabrics bearing the OEKO-TEX standard
  • About sustainable trims and components
  • The difference in sizing between non-wired and wired bras
  • What it's like to launch a new brand under lockdown
  • About anti-casting and empowerment in lingerie design and marketing
  • Social media engagement strategies for new brands yet to launch a product 

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Next Lesson

  • Recycled Fabrics: Producers, Suppliers and Processes

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    Summary

    As small brands and independent studios, sourcing can take up a huge chunk of time - and rightly so, because fabric is the backbone of your product. The textile supply chain is complex, with some mills producing only the fibres, some producers only supplying the fabric in large quantities, and some people in the chain are not manufacturers at all but the certifying body. So to help you navigate the terminology and types of suppliers within the specific recycled textile realm, we've put together a starting block lesson.

    Read on for the well-known recycled yarn innovators, the producers creating yarn from recycled feedstock, and the suppliers able to sell you metres of recycled fabrics. This is not a complex list, just one that aims to better point you in the right direction.

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