I launched my brand ‘Vanjo’ back in 2005, it was a brand targeting small backs, big boobs. The band-size went down to a 28 inch back which was unheard of back then, and the cup up to a FF. Not many independent brands tackled the bigger cup market and often produced soft bras that went up a C cup. My designs were to incorporate no fully beige or white bra and no big knicker that the brands assumed you wanted because you were buying a big bra.

I was living in Belfast at the time and as well as buying dead stock Liberty fabric, I would come over to England once a year and walk around the big warehouse of CSF online, that housed many a treasure of fabrics and trims. If you haven’t visited CSF or their online store their ethos hasn’t changed (which is why I still use them twenty years on), which is gaining materials and components from supplies that run to the end of their line. Which is great on more than one account because:

Using dead-stock materials materials meant my brand had an environmental and ethical stance, I wasn’t getting new materials produced for my bras.
I often found materials and trims that were unusual that I knew not many brands would have.
There were no minimums, which was so important for my small brand.
Because they took on fabrics and trims from other companies I knew that everything I bought was of industry standard.

Now I live in England I visit the warehouse more often than once a year and whilst looking around a spied a small roll of fabric hidden in the depths of other rolls of a fabric I used in one of my first collections. Now I love the all things serendipity of life and thought what were the chances of me finding this roll again exactly twenty years on. So, I took on the challenge to get this fabric again and re-design how I design now compare it to the one twenty years ago.

2005 version

The fabric is a black stretch mesh with an embroidered woman going shopping with a dog, did I still love the fabric - yes I did. First time round the design had frilly black elastic and bows, this time round I went with a no edge elastic and no bows.

The bra previous had a vertical seam, this time around it had a vertical and a horizontal seam and a higher apex.

The briefs last time were tiny and frilly this time it was all about a throw back to an eighties version, high leg and sleek.

What I learnt

Great fabrics don’t fail you and also, learning your style of your design is so important as you will come back to it and still love it. If you are questioning or having trouble with the direction of your design, I wrote a lingeri-E-course ‘How to design and refine your first lingerie collection’ All about the direction you should take with gaining a clear view of your lingerie brand before you spend any money getting a sample only to discover you don’t like it.

Also, what I learnt form my brand previously is that when agreeing with a buyer to give the samples free so they can do a photoshoot with the and they provide you with the images, ask to see the model first. The model they used didn’t fit in with the direction of where I wanted to take my brand and looked too young.