Emma Howard: Welcome back to the Baby Channel. I am Emma Howard and we're talking about sex. I am joined now on the sofa by sex expert, Suzi Godson and Jules Fossett, who is from Amoralia, a company specializing in maternity lingerie and you are holding loads of it, and lots of it is on the table. How did it start and you are just doing maternity lingerie?
Jules Fossett: Well those are real niche, those are real gap in the markets. I used to work with a big ad agency and I always wanted to start my own business and I knew that the lingerie industry was booming and so I really wanted to do something there and whilst I was doing my research, my sister and sister-in-law were both pregnant and they said to me, Jules when you do your lingerie business, will you make sure you make some maternity bra because everything was really hideous and frumpy and I laughed it off, not having had kids myself.
Emma Howard: Exactly, it isn’t borne out of experience on your part.
Jules Fossett: No, exactly.
Emma Howard: This is all yet to come?
Jules Fossett: Touch wood, but the feeling was I am like any other women. I know that we have off days, I know that you may feel a bit frumpy at times and I know what it’s like to wear something, a little bit glamor, a little bit sexy, you feel instantly better. So why would pregnant women not feel the same, of course they would. So I did my research and looked at the market and spent 18 months getting the company from zero to actually having a product that I was happy to serve, that was comfortable, practical but also stylish and also pretty.
Emma Howard: And where are you selling it? Where can women buy this stuff?
Jules Fossett: We are selling it in all sorts of places from a little lingerie boutiques like Amoralia’s Follies to big department stores like Harvey Nicks and also a Topshop at the Oxford Street?
Emma Howard: And once you have got into big chains, is that post baby as well, very useful to Suzi, sitting next to you here. Suzi has gotten with her fourth baby, Velvet, who was sleeping earlier while we spoke to you, she is awake now. It’s all of a sudden aware, isn’t it velvet? Yeah. Yes you like all of these lovely things. What do you think about all of this? Do you think that it makes a difference, you know, you have had the baby, in your case you have got other children around as well. You are tired, you are feeding. Do you think about underwear or is it the loss that you are thinking about?
Suzi Godson: I do think about underwear.
Emma Howard: You don't think about putting it on?
Suzi Godson: I have been really dreadful. While I was pregnant, I just took my sister’s maternity bras and since then I just haven’t bought any and I think seeing all this now, I’d really like to.
Emma Howard: Because it all looks fresh and clean and shiny.
Suzi Godson: I think it's easy to -- I’d probably let myself go a bit actually.
Emma Howard: I thought you’d look very stylish and sexy. I think what's lovely about what I can see in front of me, I don't know if you agree Suzi, is this is big enough to sort of cup up a boson that's breastfeeding, all full of milk because when you see things with black lace that we’ve got here on the table and some of the things you are holding, they are all so thin and little g-strings and just tiny with that, definitely it can go over a full breast.
Suzi Godson: Yeah, it's got a bit of --
Emma Howard: Exactly a support --
Jules Fossett: I mean we do go out to an F-cup and a 40 back and everything is designed with a fuller, heavier bust that's actually much more sensitive and everything is cotton lined, everything feels fabulous on. We make a point of using all the softest materials, the softest elastics and bindings because we know that you are feeling…
Emma Howard: And this is a feeding bra, isn’t it?
Jules Fossett: That's a feeding bra, yes! Yes, that’s actually a nesting bra.
Suzi Godson: One thing I’ve found difficult is that the bras are designed to give you some support, but you are using them with a breast pad if you are feeding and then your nipple gets a bit squashed. I think you found out that.
Emma Howard: No I do agree.
Suzi Godson: So there is sort of, you need to have enough room for it to be comfortable, but you also need the support and that seems to be quite difficult to achieve.
Emma Howard: So you need that extra rim. And I certainly -- I mean leaking boobs is something you don’t think about until you have had the baby, that's all and then, I mean, if you haven’t got it right, you have it that your breast is, all you chasing enough is coming through your clothes and you just look at yourself and think, how did I ever get myself in this and then you probably wouldn't want to wear something beautiful, you’d be scared of ruining it.
Jules Fossett: Well, you wouldn't because you can chuck it in the washing machine.
Emma Howard: It's all washable, is it?
Jules Fossett: It's totally washable! I mean this is the point, we’re just trying to combine that…
Suzi Godson: Well I think about the shape of the pants is -- they look rather forgiving when you are not feeling your best and you still got 20 pounds to lose.
Emma Howard: Yes, let's have a closer look of that, this is the bra or this the front? Now that is exactly…
Jules Fossett: The deeper pant! So it's a little bit wide, it's a little bit forgiving, it's very, very soft and stretchy as well. The thought that you can have a little bow that you tie at the sides --
Emma Howard: And you have a thong with it, haven’t you?
Jules Fossett: …means that, so what if you need to tie it loosely?
Suzi Godson: Purely practical level, I have found that my Marks & Spencer’s pants just sits precisely over my cesarean scar. So this is exactly what I need.
Jules Fossett: Exactly, nice and low and forgiving and just still very flattering as well.
Emma Howard: Very firm and feminine as well.
Jules Fossett: Everything that we do is, well, we try to be as flattering as possible. So, thongs cut to flatter slightly larger bottoms as well. So this thong here…
Emma Howard: Turn that around, I can’t see.
Jules Fossett: …is not really of the normal what I call cheese-wire thong. It's much-much more flattering and it's got a cut a little bit wider on the hips.
Emma Howard: I think Velevet is quite a bit excited with all the underwear that she is seeing. What's really interesting about you Jules, is that you did you did a psychology degree and as you say you worked in advertising, this is a big change of direction.
Jules Fossett: It is, it is but it's -- you know, I wanted to start my own business and that was a real opportunity and so I thought okay, if I don’t do it, someone else will.
Emma Howard: But your psychology degree, I think comes into play because everything you have talked about just now, even you haven’t been through it, but you have some kind of understanding.
Jules Fossett: Exactly and I think this is what they call the Zulu effect where you don’t know about something. So you actually go half a level and try and understand as much about it as possible because you realize you that you don’t have first hand experience. And my of course my designer has actually had a little girl herself, so she really has first time knowledge as well.
Emma Howard: And you spoke to mid-wives, didn’t you?
Jules Fossett: I spoke to mid-wives --
Emma Howard: -- you spoke to health visitors, breastfeeding mums. What kind of impact did they make on your designs in terms of -- what was it that they said that you thought, alright, I haven’t thought about it.
Jules Fossett: Lots of things like the point about the breast pad which may be moves about, so you want to have some thing anchoring it in a little bit. The hook and eye at the back, that's always really painful and it digs in. Little details like having to wear a low cut dress for an event but not having the nesting bra to go with it. So actually having something that's lower, little bit lower cut. Nipples that were showing through the bra because you know that they’re a little bit more sensitive and little bit larger…
Emma Howard: Yeah and doing a job
Jules Fossett: Exactly and so you could have a light pad in the bra to smooth, to get a nicer shape, all those kind of things. I am just really understanding them, understanding what they wanted and the point that they felt not great, a little bit frumpy, different body, don’t feel yourself and actually you just want to feel normal again.
Emma Howard: I think though Suzi, it's hard for women, isn’t it, when they put these things to one side in many ways, don’t they? Especially with that first baby there is so much to tackle. Sleep deprivation gets in the way of everything really, doesn’t it?
Suzi Godson: I think it's very difficult. I think that I am normally incredibly flat chested. I went up to a double E. I mean it's just impossible for someone like me to get ahead of that change in the space of time that you’re given to be pregnant and feed of with and so you see it as a finite period of time.
Emma Howard: So you are not going to invest?
Suzi Godson: Yeah, but actually I think you’re probably right if you did take time and spend the money, you could make yourself feel significantly more attractive during the process.
Jules Fossett: Exactly and we’ve been very, very careful to price this within the market as well because there is a tendency exactly as you say, women say oh! Well, I am only going to be wearing it for 4-6 months. I am not going to splat on them, I am not going to splat -- there is so much else to buy and so the maximum price of any of our bras is 42 pounds which is still very reasonable when you look at…
Emma Howard: So it is something like John Lewis with that big range in maternity nesting bras, you’ll be spending similar amounts.
Jules Fossett: Exactly. And again you think if you buy yourself a nice little treat bra from Milo or something like that, it's 80 pounds plus, and you’d probably wear it once or twice, where the nesting bra, you’re wearing it everyday, you’re washing it, you get a lot of use out of it.
Emma Howard: Which makes you feel great. Great underwear makes you feel great, it's my big thing. Now one of your designs, this is what for Agent Provocateur, haven’t they? So they’ve kind of brought back sexy -- oh god! She is being so, so good. But I love having a little bit underwear because it's about the two things coming together. Maybe she wants to know on something, she seems as if she does, she liked your hand and her hand there.
So I think that having a designer who has worked for Agent Provocateur and bring them into this world, does that help?
Jules Fossett: Oh yes, she has! She used to work for them and she then had a little girl and left and so it's kind of perfect combination of someone who has got the real design eye but also the first hand experience of it. So we work together and it's a brilliant combination.
Emma Howard: And what's the feedback, you’re getting?
Jules Fossett: Oh, fantastic! It's really, really good. It's selling really well. When we say, my god I lost underwear that I feel, well I feel sexy in, I lost my friends actually who’ll look at this and who might not have had kids looking at them, but I’d wear that normally. I mean that's the point, that's the point. We’re making underwear that you’d want to wear normally.
Emma Howard: That's the surprise about it, but the fact that you haven’t had children, was that occurred in a negative thing way in selling it. People saying, what do you know, you haven’t been through this experience.
Jules Fossett: Yes and no! But I think when you demonstrate the knowledge of the product and you demonstrate knowledge in knowing your market, buyers are overcome because…
Emma Howard: And the product you have, speaks for itself.
Jules Fossett: Exactly and sure there is a funny sort of club mentality and so of course when you come to a -- and you’re an outsider, what do you know about this, but I listen a lot and you know I’ll learn as I go along.
Emma Howard: Yes and that's what would you think that the range has a lot further to develop?
Jules Fossett: Yes, absolutely! We’ve introduced swimwear already which has been a real success and we’re doing bits of loungewear and nursing cammies, but keeping it although luxurious and…
Emma Howard: But in being luxurious, is that not a danger that it is a niche market? Do you want to get to more women?
Jules Fossett: Absolutely. It's a niche market but it's got a global appeal. Women the world over get pregnant, we’ve already got a stockist in Dubai and Australia because women the world over feel this way.
Emma Howard: So why has it been so late that this has happened. We know you are not the first one to have done this as bit but there aren’t many of you out there producing this kind of thing. Why do you think that is Suzi?
Suzi Godson: I think purely because of the mentally. You’re not feeling at your best.
Emma Howard: And when Madonna, when just had babies, don’t we? We don’t in the Madonna pop sense.
Suzi Godson: And there is a kind of an economic aspect.
Emma Howard: Yeah I think that s very true.
Suzi Godson: And in a weird way pregnancy and having new babies there is this is kind of quite democratic tradition of handing on to your sister or best friend, the things that you’ve used. You end up wearing bras that don’t actually quite fit you because you’re too mean to go out and buy a new one.
Emma Howard: Yeah, certainly this, I think, would be horrified, and we are very welcoming of what you are doing, but you do have a lot of convincing to do, I think?
Jules Fossett: I do in a way but it actually is interesting what you’re saying about sisters and some because we find that we sell very well as gifts. Sisters buy for their sisters, friends, for their friends, husbands, we’ve just done a great big loads of sales through it. On Valentines Day, for a husbands you think, I want to tell her I still find her really attractive and you know, it does work very well in that sense.
Emma Howard: We wish you the best of luck with it. It's Fantastic! And thank you for staying numb for this and Velvet, we’ve pushed you to your limits and you were brilliant. So all three of you ladies, thank you very much, indeed. Now remember if you have any thoughts about any of the issues raised today or you want to get in touch with any other baby or parenting related questions, we’d love to hear from you.
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