It then became professionally real!
A chance chat about my idea at a village social event set me off on the next step of the just B me journey … a friend of a friend mentioned a knickers manufacturer (Headen & Quarmby) who had featured in a TV documentary.
After a few weeks of building up the courage (did I mention that I hate chatting on the phone to people I don’t know – it is a visual thing as I like to see the faces of people I am talking to), I phoned Headen & Quarmby to see if they could help. They could and they did … bringing their professional expertise to my amateur knickers design, they made the first sample.
The problem was, my measurements weren’t quite right, so the knickers turned out a little ‘Simon Cowell-style’!
After a rather awkward phone call, where I am sure I used all of the wrong terminology (there may have been a better phrase than ‘camel toe’ to describe the bunching at the front that I needed to avoid, but hey) we got to the bottom of the issue … a too tight elastic waistband was dragging the knickers up practically to my ‘nips’ while the fabric I had bought for the leg bindings wasn’t stretchy enough. Thank goodness the H&Q team were patient!
A few more tweaks to the design and a few months later after a fab photo shoot and quite a few learnings along the way, we are now waiting on the delivery of the first order at the end of this week and hence the launch of just B me. How exciting?!