Every rose has a thorn

You may have heard a bit about new lingerie label, Rose & Thorne.

In a nutshell, lingerie designers ex-Bendon have started a low-priced yet well-designed brand.

They decided to stock it exclusively at The Warehouse for maximum nationwide reach, at the country's largest retailer. We ask Sue Dunmore about it...

1. What compelled you and Stefan to bring a unique Kiwi lingerie label into the market?

We have an amazing team of lingerie designers and developers who are all super committed to living and working in NZ. Bendon moving its core operations to Australia meant that we needed to come up with something great to build a business for ourselves to work in. We took a clean sheet of paper to see how we could transform the experience of buying and wearing everyday lingerie and do it for half the price you'd expect to pay. It continues to be a great challenge for our team.

2. Tell us about the shapefit technology ‘Easyfit’. How does it work on New Zealand women?

First we took stock of all the best fitting bras in the world and distilled this down to 7 shapes that all fit a wide range of women and sizes. There is no perfect fit for any one woman - as we are all different and even change shape week to week - so we developed a way of making a product that has forgiveness in the fit but without a loss of support. This means that even if you wore a wrong size bra, like many women do, it would still be comfortable. Most kiwi women would like one to three of our shapes. Once you know the shape and size that works you can come back and get different bras in the same shape and size without trying them on. This saves all those hassles - no more getting naked in store!

3. In keeping with the fashionable designs there are some really cheeky names for the bras, was it a fun process naming them? Did any not make the cut?

We brainstormed the names based on the character of the shapes. I can’t remember any that we did not use - the current ones fell into place easily. However we did have a debate about ‘perky power’ - it actually started out as perky pride.

4. The range sits at a really fantastic pricepoint. Was it important that the brand was affordable?

We felt we needed to radically shift the price point - first because we thought it could be done, and second because we felt that most bras and knickers are sold primarily on looks rather than practicality - and for practical undies you want value. Fortunately the way we have delivered the value is by reducing costs without affecting the quality of the product - compromising quality is something we could never do. We cut costs by limiting our choices of raw materials, clever manufacturing methods, limiting our shapes, and spending less on fancy imagery and advertising.

5. We hear it’s walking out the door…

Yes! Sales keep growing and we are immensely grateful for the support of our early customers. Fortunately they are all very happy with their purchases and tell us via email and on our Facebook page which is very motivating. We have heard back clearly that we need to extend our size range and this is something we are working hard on. By May we expect to be much more richly represented in sizes. We are also working on new shapes specifically designed for women with E to G cup sizes. We want to really surprise those women with some great new options!

Check out the range here at www.roseandthornedesign.co.nz

7 January 2011