Hi, welcome to the first blog post from me, the designer of Hidden Beneath. I guess the first place to start this from is the beginning. .
It all started about 2 and a half years ago, I walked out of a business advisers office resolute in the fact that I was going to stop trying to create a children's wear brand and create an underwear brand instead. It wasn't a hard decision to make, but to put aside a project that you thought you wanted and had been working hard on is not a natural thing to do, well not for me anyway. The important take away from all of it though was that deciding to end it never felt like failure but a step towards something else. I knew what I had to do deep down but sometimes you need to hear something from a stranger to give you that nudge to go through with it.
The first collection was easy to conceive, I knew what I wanted to create. Whether that came from age and experience or designers initiative I will never know, but what I did know was as a mother of two my body had changed, my views of what women were had changed and I had no thresh hold left in me to be uncomfortable in what I wore as foundations both physically and emotionally. Basic bralettes and pants were out there already but they never really captured me as a consumer. They were too feminine, too young, too boring, I wanted something that was neutral and interesting but wearable nonetheless. I was also keen to create a brand that spoke to people like me. In an age where Google, Facebook and Amazon are trying to take over I wanted something small and interesting. I couldn't appeal to the masses if I tried, even though sometimes I wish I could but I don't have it in me.
Now living on an island has it's drawbacks ( a blog post for another time) one of the big ones being that I had no access to fabric Luckily because of my children's wear brand (called Cotton Sparrow by the way, I think there are still some images on google) I had some knowledge as to where to get fabric from online. Plain and basic was easy to get and once the brand gained traction I would be able to source direct from suppliers, so I used what I had to the best of my ability. I was able to fall back on what I had learnt as my semester abroad at FIT, New York and develop a line ready to pitch to buyers and editors and of course the world via Instagram.
Some images from the first collection.
I had a wholesale order within 7 months of starting which I don't believe I would have got if I hadn't done Cotton Sparrow and I have been building from this ever since. It was Thomas Edison who said 'I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work' so let's see how this goes. x