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British bras are big business: New
brands on the market

What is special about British bras?

For the last 15 years in Britain, there
was, and is still going on, an
?underwear revolution? comprising two
aspects: a human and a commercial. Since
the mid-1990s, there were huge changes
in the women?s attitude towards their
underwear wardrobe and in their ability
to spend money on themselves. This
resulted in a boom in lingerie business.
At present, British women are buying
more bras, better quality and sexier
than in the early 1990s. Recent studies
by Rigby & Peller (corsetiere to the
Queen) show that the British spend more
on underwear than any other nation in
Europe.

What did trigger this revolution in
Britain?

It is a complex question. First of all,
the world now is more consumer-oriented
than 15 years ago. In the early 1990s,
women weren't drowning in choice the way
they are now, so it is hardly surprising
that on average, they only bought one
bra a year. However, the most important
factor behind the boom in bras, and the
one that is hardest to quantify, is that
women are not the same as they were in
the yearly 1990s. According to a recent
article in Telegraph by Jo Craven, two
events in 1994 dramatically altered the
history of the British bra: Eva
Herzigova in the 'Hello boys!' Wonderbra
advert and the opening of a small shop
in Soho called Agent Provocateur, with a
scantily clad dummy in the window.
Darkened windows in lingerie shops
became history. Today there is not a
high street in the country without 'come
hither' lingerie shops vying for our
attention.

In 2001, there was another event in the
underwear revolution which shook the
best half of the nation: In the ?What
Not to Wear? television show, Trinny and
Susannah?s relentless assault on
laughably awful underwear shamed many of
us to take a long hard look at our boobs
and realise we, too, needed to go
shopping. Wearing the right bra size
miraculously made us feel more confident
- giving us a better posture and making
us look slimmer. British women now buy
on average four bras a year - the most
per head in Europe.

These days women know all too well what
they want, they are going to ask for it,
and they are certainly not waiting for a
man to buy it for them. Women don't feel
the need to look good for anyone but
themselves and if someone else
appreciates their lingerie, then that's
a bonus. Whether it is sexual confidence
or social change, it has had a big
impact on the psychology of the average
bra shopper. 'Women today exist in a
"have it all" society?, says Franceska
Luther, the creative director of Myla.
?We strive to be the best we can be -
both at work and at home. We want the
most fabulous clothes, the best beauty
products and this must be complemented
by the finest lingerie.' Even if we can
not afford ?79 for a bra, we are seduced
into buying it anyway. British women's
relationship with their underwear has
moved on from being about functionality.
They now buy into it for its ?feelgood?
factor. Lingerie has become a fashion
accessory.

The underwear revolution affected the
average British bra size. The headline
news is that the nation's breasts are
getting bigger. Where once the average
British bra size was 34B, it is now 36D
or 38C or 34E depending who is talking.
In fact, bra designers claim that about
80-85 per cent of women in UK wear
wrong-size bras. Thus, the mysterious
bra-size increase does not mean that,
for the last 15 years, the nation's
breasts are literally getting
bigger?this means that, for the last 15
years, British boobs got their
right-size bras. The bad side of the
wearing of the wrong-size bra is that it
can lead to back, neck and posture
problems.

Lingerie business in Britain

There is an exhausting energy in bra
land. Since the early 1990s, the number
of lingerie brands available in
high-street shops is increased
exponentially. At the same time, the
price of designer lingerie went down,
that makes buying into the big-brand
experience affordable. The business of
bras is increasingly a place of
takeovers where small labels struggle to
grow and compete. In 2006, we spent
?2.48 billion on our lingerie in
Britain. Since then, the underwear
market expands by about 2.6 per cent per
year. Marks & Spencer sold 20 million
bras in 2007 - 10 per cent more than in
2006. The growth is definitely set to
continue. A bra is not too expensive a
thing to buy to make you feel good when
you are feeling the credit crunch.

Recent development of online businesses
profoundly changed our attitudes to
shopping. Most people prefer to shop on
internet sitting comfortably at home -
less stress, cheaper, bigger choice, 24
hours a day, and 365 days a year. Online
sales are definitely a growing force,
including lingerie market. Every brand
you can think of can now be bought
online. Online stores make the brand
competition fairer: small, independent
lingerie brands can co-exist and, even,
compete with big ones, occupying a
certain niche of the Britain market. In
many cases, the ratio of quality/price
of bras and knickers of small-size
lingerie brands is better than that of
big brands. You pay just for the
product, not for a big-brand name and a
product attached to it.

New lingerie brands on the British
market

New lingerie brands continue to break
into the British market. The upmarket
Russian lingerie company Wild Orchid,
which has a turnover of ?50 million with
216 stores throughout Russia and
Ukraine, made recently its British
debut. Wild Orchid is the first Russian
retail chain to break into the European
market. The Italian company Tezenis
opened recently on Regent Street selling
competitively priced underwear. Tezenis
has 100 stores in Italy and is
aggressively expanding throughout
Europe.

Mid-size lingerie brands knock at the
door of the British market too. A newly
launched web-site EliteBraLingerie.com
presents to the British public a new
lingerie brand ALUR. In French
pronunciation, Alur sounds similar to
Allure, a Canadian lingerie brand
designers of which concentrate more on
sex appeal of lingerie, mainly, in
leather. As Wild Orchid, Alur is an East
European brand, and very popular over
there. What makes Alur bras popular is
their quality, competitive pricing and
colour gamut. They are very practical
and long lasting. The nine-years old
Alur is one of the first, if not the
first, who started to use large-size
live models to present its lingerie.
They say that ?big? is not necessary
ugly ? ?big? can be beautiful too (see
the picture).

(Alur lingerie model at the
International Exhibition ?Kiev Fashion?
in 42DD bra.)

What do women want? A perfect bra:
underwired or not?

Charlotte Williamson in her 2006 article
in Telegraph described her trip to
Paris, to visit a famous bra designer
Poupie Cadolle who makes hand-made bras
called 'Cara'. It costs 550 euros (?380
at that time), takes three months to
make and is supposed to create the
perfect bust. But is the bespoke 'Cara'
really the ultimate bra? 'OK, what do
you want from your bra?' asks Mme
Cadolle when they meet. Charlotte
replies ?I want support and lift and a
fabulous shape?. 'Then you need the
Cara! This is the perfect bra.' says Mme
Cadolle. After a few months (and one
additional fitting in-between),
Charlotte received her Cara by post. Her
final conclusion is that the Cara may be
not the ultimate bra but, at least, it
is a perfect one. The Cara is an
underwired bra.

During the meeting in Paris, Mme Cadolle
explained that ?It should last two,
three, four years, with proper care.'
?What is the proper care?? 'You have to
hand-wash it every week, at least. You
must not use detergent. Use a pure
shampoo.' ?A hair shampoo?? 'Why not!
What gets ruined is the elastic. And no
Woolite! It is a killer of elastics.'

In Paris, Mme Cadolle also remarked that
'The Italians love coloured bras, they
have no complex about colour. The
English love colour, too - they buy red,
blue and emerald.?

What about the credit crunch?

So despite the credit crunch, can
women's seemingly insatiable appetite
for lingerie make it recession-proof?
'Some women may trade up for investment
bras, and some may trade down for
something cheaper. If you only pay ?5
for a bra then it's a guilt-free treat,'
Mintel's Sally Bain comments. But with
so much evidence of competitive pricing,
Michelle Mone is adamant that 'the bra
that does the job will survive whereas
the bra that is just a brand will
disappear.' Achieving growth is
definitely going to be tougher going.
And the jostling between product
innovation, price, fashion and
functionality within a bra that also
needs to make us feel and look good at
the same time is a fine balance. One
thing is for sure, there is no going
back; this is a battle that will run and
run. It is good news for the Alur brand.

The article is about British bras, the underwear revolution
in UK, women's style and fashion, business dealing with
lingerie and new brands on the market during the credit
crunch.

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