Four things you need to be a lingerie designer
This month of having one-to-ones with clients and booking in mentor chats, I have noticed I’ve covered the topic about what it’s going to take to be a lingerie designer. So thought I’d share on here with you.
Consistency
It’s boring and nobody really wants to give this credit, as you imagine to get to where you want to go takes something a bit more special and bit more pizzazz. But there we have it. Consistency the word disguised as work on something everyday even when you don’t want to, when everything conspires against you that day.
Put like this if you give up, you’re not going to get there! Being a lingerie designer may take you longer than you first thought and there may be stumbling blocks however DIRECTION IS BETTER THAN SPEED.
Knowledge
You’re gonna have to learn something, even if you are outsourcing everything, it helps to know the basics. It makes sense to outsource your weaknesses if you can can; but even with your strengths keep learning. I often work you tube tutorials on illustrator so I can make my tech drawings better, I read pattern books, or watch seminars about social media to try and learn something new. I want to have a broad knowledge about every aspect when designing. Currently I outsource all my books to be laid out professionally, my first book I did everything to get started and whilst I will now outsource the layout of the books, I have started to read about InDesign so I begin to understand more about it.
Action
Which brings me to the next step - action. You can listen to many a wise woman (or man) about designing lingerie, or read about it, but unless you take action on what you’ve heard or read you’re not going to get any feedback yourself on what works or doesn’t. What works for me may or may not work for you. By taking action you can adjust what works or what doesn’t. If you book in with a chat with me, I can give you a timeline, or advice on your next steps, but unless you take the knowledge you’ve learnt into doing, you will be in the same place as before. Nothing is set in stone, you’re not a politician, you can change you mind on things, you can set up your website only to change it later down the line. You can launch your brand only to change it in the next season because items were not working. Just take the next step.
End Goal
I advise to have an end goal (you can keep changing this once you reach it), this will allow you to know what you are striving for, which helps if life keeps disrupting your consistency. So do you just want to design lingerie for yourself and have a great hobby? Become a freelancer? Launch a brand? Get your lingerie in shops? Get your lingerie shown in a magazine or social media by others? By knowing where you are wanting to end up will keep you being sidetracked and know what you should be doing. Plus it will remind you of why you started.
My Back Story
Whilst we can look at others and think their success is overnight (and for the rare few this can happen) usually there has been a lot of things happening in the background that failed - in a good way as this is where you learn heaps from because it means you’ve taken action.
2000 - 2003: worked for lingerie design factory, and back at home a couple nights a week I would unpick bras and try put together soft bras for support and in cup size, it all failed miserably and I didn’t get anywhere. Also launched a blog called Lingerie, Looks and Lace where I wrote about other lingerie brands.
2003-2004: travelled around S.E.Asia, in Thailand got a job as a freelance swimwear designer as I had my sketchbook with me and showed it to the owner of a store.
2004-2009: launched brand Vanjo with many learning aspects.
Launched blog '“how to be a lingerie designer”
2009-2012: wrote book ‘How to be a lingerie designer’
2012-2013: gained sponsorship to work as a Lingerie designer in Australia
2013: book published
2013-2015: wrote more books and took on freelance design work
2015: changed ‘HTBALD’ website name to ‘Van Jonsson Design’ as business grew
2015-2022: Added more products to website including technical books, one-to-ones and mentorship
2022: launching lingeri-e-course
So if you look back I have continued to build and build my business, the first blog wasn’t a success, but it made launching the next one easier. Freelancing in Thailand meant that I had the confidence to launch my brand when I settled in another place outside England (and finally sorting out fits of the soft bra) and had experience working in another country when I applied for the Australian job.
Launching my brand meant that I had the knowledge to write my own book, with it taking so long it gave me space to get the Australian job and give me ideas to write others. Changing the website name and taking my business in a new direction was built upon the previous blog/website.
Accepting things take longer than I would like has allowed me to add more and more products in the time it takes for them.
With nearly ten years since the launch of the first book has allowed me to gather information from questions asked about lingerie design into an e-course to give you all the information you need.
So whilst at the time when things didn’t work out, or took longer than first thought looking back I can see that it’s gotten me to where I am now.
If I wasn’t consistent , if I didn’t learn anything new, or apply the knowledge I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today, and although some end goals have been met others still haven’t so I am always trying to strive and achieve them but allow the business to go in the direction it need to.
So in layman terms, keep bloody going, learn something new , try it yourself and in the words of Buster Moon (Sing) ‘Dream Big’.
Want to use the figure templates?
