These 2 Besties Make Lingerie As Dramatic As They Are
Eliza and Lola want you to know that you don’t need stacks on deck to start a business.
The two U.K. kweens claim they started their lingerie business Luvli Lounge on just under $400 — after getting kicked out of their apartment for roommate drama and vowing never to be broke again. Bold!
We talked to Eliza and Lola about how they started their brand, how they really use influencers, and why it can be so hard for small brands to offer larger sizes.
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So when did the initial idea for Luvli Lounge stem from and how did you fund it in the beginning?
So when we first started the business we spent our money on sourcing products, photoshoots, and our website. That was about 300 pounds, or 388 American dollars. We ran the business out of our house at first, now we’ve expanded.
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What are some marketing techniques your company uses?
We always try to approach [influencers] as honestly as we can. We are genuine fans of many of the celebrities we work with, so it’s a personal touch when trying to gain influencers. We look and see if the women we choose are more than their huge following because we want them to represent our brand overall. When we met Lira Galore when she came to London and gave her some of our products she loved them as well as promoted it on her social media. Those types of connections and relationships we build with influencers help our brand reach the masses.
A great marketing technique would be to study your market, and be consistent. Build a rapport with your influencers and customers. Engage with your customers as well, because that will make your brand more engaging. Our first post was what type of lingerie and material do you like?
Another tip is to never buy your followers, allow them to be organic. Like businesses start on a Tuesday and have 10k followers in a day, if you have all these fake followers and aren’t making sales it’s because your money won’t grow without your customers growing. When you’re consistent you see what works for your company and what patterns your followers have. Although social media can be random, your followers are structured. If you upload whenever you feel like and it has nothing to do with your followers, you won’t see progress, so be patient.
This question is for both of you, what was your favorite outfit as a kid and what does it say about who you are now?
Lola: I loved wearing trainers and no bras and track suits, I was a tomboy. I was very rough and now it has transpired to me being hard working and having thick skin. Soon as a situation goes wrong I’ll have a few seconds then I’ll be like, “let’s figure it out.”
Eliza: Crop tops, we called them belly tops and jeans and dungarees. I think putting outfits together and designing things is the type of person I am now, so dressing the way I did as a kid helps me with my attention for detail.
What middle school trend do both you most regret?
Eliza: Oh my gosh, we used to wear matching cardigans, white top underneath, with matching Keds, it was the worst outfit ever. We also had matching ribbons in our head. So if you wore pink, all of that would have to be pink, can you imagine how horrible that looked?
Lola: We used to wear the shiny Dr. Martens and now that I think about it, that was terrible.
The biggest size you carry is large, do you plan on adding plus size to your brand or keeping it as is?
When we first started we were so ambitious and thought we could do everyone, but now we realize it’s so expensive. You have to provide support and a great design, so that makes it more technical. We feel like if we go into that, we want it to be perfect. We don’t want anyones’ breasts falling out. When you’re going larger [there are] more components, so you have to be careful.
What are the most important factors in creating a lingerie line?
To be honest, we have days where we just design, and anything can inspire us. We realize that we can’t use every design we like, and once its manufactured it doesn’t look as good as we envisioned sometimes, so it’s constantly a back and forth process.
So you don’t wholesale?
No. At first we did, but now we want control of what we sell to people. And when we did wholesale we would see things that could be done better. We don’t want to just sell stuff, we want them to be inspired. We have a different business model where we don’t rely on others designs because if something goes wrong we want to have full control.
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What are each of your roles in your company and how did you delegate who does what?
We are both co-founders. It happened organically, we never delegated roles. Lola is the creative director so she deals with our photoshoots, reaching out to influencers, our social media presence, etc. Eliza is the manger and director so she is constantly setting a timeline, corresponding with people over the phone, dealing with bookwork and other tedious matters.
How has it been reaching American customers & getting them interested in your brand? What are some things you do to grab their attention?
Americans are our second biggest customers. We work with influencers all over the world. I feel like Americans are more accepting of small businesses as opposed to UK girls. Your network is your net worth and a lot of the UK girls don’t really support you. They don’t try to help you out and collaborate. British people don’t really care too much, they’re quite snobbish and not really accepting. American customers are less skeptical and don’t have a problem trusting small businesses as much as people in the U.K. It’s more word of mouth that boosts sales out here and once they find out we are a U.K. brand they’re willing to give us a try. With other countries, it’s connected to the influencers, so when someone from France reps our brand we get a lot of French customers.
