{"id":1328,"date":"2018-02-16T14:02:19","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T14:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2018-04-16T21:25:46","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T21:25:46","slug":"lingerie-store-picks-bras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/lingerie-store-picks-bras\/","title":{"rendered":"How A Lingerie Store Picks Bras"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re busy preparing our orders for next winter, and it occurred to me that before working at Broad, I never would have known what went into this process. In case you\u2019re curious too, here\u2019s how a lingerie store picks bras.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rules<\/span><\/h4>\n
\"\"

A re-enactment of actual events. (Yes, this is Sam’s thinking face.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Lingerie is split into two groups: basic, and fashion. \u201cBasic\u201d refers to core, permanent pieces of a brand\u2019s collection. These are styles and colours — usually black and beige — that they\u2019re making all the time. \u201cFashion\u201d refers to lingerie that\u2019s made in a limited quantity, for a limited time. (Just <\/span>how<\/span><\/i> limited depends on the company.) Fashion lingerie can be a completely new style, or a basic style in a fun new colour. Because basic styles are always in production, we can order them any time. But fashion orders require a lot more planning! Brands base their fashion production on retailer orders, so we\u2019re often ordering eight months in advance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brands also divide their pieces by season: fall\/winter and spring\/summer. This impacts what we have access to at any point in the year. For example, even if we really wanted to stock it, we\u2019re unlikely to find a pale pink floral in a brand\u2019s fall\/winter collection.<\/span><\/p>\n

Research<\/span><\/h4>\n

We flip through catalogues, meet with brand reps, and — the best part — see samples! This gives us a feel for the fabrics and colours, and because Sam and I are close enough to the usual sample sizes, we also get to check the fit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Remember flipping through the Sears holiday catalogue as a kid, circling everything you wanted? Yeah, that’s what we do for work.<\/p><\/div>\n

If we\u2019re interested in ordering a basic style we haven\u2019t stocked before, or a repeated*<\/strong> fashion style that we didn\u2019t try in earlier seasons, online reviews are a huge help. Sam also has a group of other lingerie professionals she can turn to for advice and feedback.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another important part of our research is you, our customers! We talk a lot about what you ask for in fittings, and we keep an ongoing \u201ccustomer requests\u201d file to stay on top of what you\u2019d like to see at Broad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reality check<\/span><\/h4>\n

This is where budget comes in. We keep tabs on our top selling sizes, and we order more of those and fewer of the sizes that tend to linger. We also pay attention to what winds up on the sale rack. To stay in business, we have to sell most of our stock at full price. If a certain type of bra only sells at a discount, we won\u2019t order it again. Because retailer orders help determine brand production quantities, that can eventually lead to a brand discontinuing the style. This is one time where \u201cvoting with your dollar\u201d is real! If you don\u2019t buy it at full price, we won\u2019t buy it. If we don\u2019t buy it, they may stop making it.<\/span><\/p>\n

We also try to pick things to suit a range of sizes and tastes, so Sam makes awesome colour-coded charts to be sure we\u2019re not overweighting any one category. For example, ordering a billion t-shirt bras, or ordering a bunch of 30 bands and not enough 40s, or too many blue bras. <\/span>There\u2019s a lot to consider when we\u2019re choosing bras for the store. It\u2019s hard work <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> it\u2019s exciting! But the best part? Seeing those carefully-picked pieces find their people.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/strong>If a fashion style is very popular, a brand may repeat it in following seasons in a different colour or print. Sounds like a basic style, right? Even though it\u2019s being repeated, it\u2019s still a fashion piece because it\u2019s made in limited quantities, for a limited time.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re busy preparing our orders for next winter, and it occurred to me that before working at Broad, I never would have known what went into this process. In case you\u2019re curious too, here\u2019s how a lingerie store picks bras. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[201,9,16,19,127,200,17,18],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-the-bra-fitter-diaries","tag-basic-bras","tag-bra-fitting","tag-bras","tag-danforth","tag-fashion-bras","tag-how-a-lingerie-store-picks-bras","tag-lingerie","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1333,"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions\/1333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broadlingerie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}