How The Queen Of Cups Changes The Way People Buy Lingerie
ST. STEPHEN — When Abby Pond moved back to New Brunswick after studying in the United Kingdom, she faced a challenge many people across North America face – she had a hard time finding a new bra.
“I had difficulty finding a bra that fit me. The shopping options were not as diverse as they were in Europe, so I struggled,” says Pond. “I’m one of those people if they look at something, I go, ‘I bet I could make that.'”
Already an avid knitter and sewer, Pond taught herself how to make her own bras that fit her perfectly. But when her friends learned about her new skill, they wanted bras too.
“I found out that they had many of the same issues. I thought I was the only person who couldn’t find a bra that fit, but as I talked to more and more friends I realized that none of us have bras that fit,” says Pond. “They started asking me to make bras. I realized while making bras wasn’t that difficult, fitting other people and making them bras was.”
Pond decided to learn from an expert. In 2014 she went to study under Beverly Johnson, also known as the “Fairy Bra Mother” in Ontario. Under Johnson, Pond learned how to fit bras to other people’s bodies. She came back with the skills she needed to start her own business: Queen of Cups Lingerie.
Queen of Cups Lingerie makes custom bras for people of all genders and orientations. All bras are made in New Brunswick, with the majority of the fabrics used are milled in Canada or in other certified mills.
To get a custom bra made by the Queen of Cups, customers need to make an appointment. Customers can go to its location in St. Stephen, or they can make an appointment at one of the pop-ups Pond regularly has across southern New Brunswick.
Customers get a 30-minute fitting to determine their perfect fit. Once the bra is made, the customer then has a second fitting, where if any, adjustments are made. Once complete they can take their bra home.
“They’re all sewn in our studio here in St. Stephen,” says Pond. “We were at my house in my home studio until last November. But I now have a full-time employee, so it was getting a bit crowded. Now we’re in downtown St. Stephen. I also have a contract sewer who works for me in Fredericton.”
In addition to making bras, Pond also teaches bra-making classes throughout New Brunswick and in Halifax.
Companies like Queen of Cups are part of a growing trend in North America of new businesses rejecting the traditional marketing a retail model of lingerie. While Victoria’s Secret and La Senza, retailers that have long dominated the market, are struggling, other companies like ThirdLove and smaller niche retailers like Queen of Cups are thriving. They offer a more customized and experienced focused on the person wearing the bra, not who might see it.
“In the North American market, we’ve been chronically underserved and short sold on what lingerie actually is and what’s in supposed to do, because the dominant player in it for the last 30 years in North America has been Victoria’s Secret,” says Pond.
“They’ve spent the last 30 years telling us that underwear is for women to put on their bodies for men to look at. It’s not been made to support us and what we need it to do in order to function in our daily lives and we’ve put up with it.”
Pond credits the rise of e-commerce over the last decade along with social movements like #MeToo for the shift in the consumer mindset.
“We need clothing that is made to support our bodies and what we want to do, not just look pretty,” says Pond. “It can look pretty, but it can look pretty for me, not for you. I think this shift that’s been happening has been enabled by e-commerce. It allows niche markets to grow and to be more visible.”
Just over a year ago, Pond left her other job to run Queen of Cups full time. With the company now her main focus, she has some big plans for 2020. One of them is introducing a new product: custom underwear, a product she will be able to offer online since the measurements are a bit more forgiving than those of bras. The fabric for the underwear will also be plant-based, meaning it biodegrades.
“Basically, I’m going to be offering several different styles of underwear so you can get the cut and coverage that you want in different fabrics,” says Pond. “You go to the website, you watch a video that shows you how to take your measurements, you put them in, choose the cuts and fabric you want and then we make you your underwear and ship it to you.”
Pond will also be adding underwear making classes to her roster this spring.
“I’m expanding my teaching classes as well because I do get a lot of feedback from people that they are not quite confident enough to tackle a bra yet,” she says. “I’ll be doing some more introductory level courses like making underwear, which gets people more familiar with the types of stitches and working with elastics and those types of things”
By offering custom underwear online, Pond will be able to test out the possibility of offering the custom bra service online too. If all goes to plan, she’ll also hire more staff.
“It’s a simpler product and it’s testing the steps that might let me eventually offer the other services that I have with bra making to a larger audience. But there are technological and fitting challenges that are difficult with such a customized, tightly fit garment being sold online,” says Pond
“It’s giving me the runway to test out different ideas with a less complex garment. My goal this year is to get that launched and make it successful so I can expand my team and pull myself out of production entirely so I can focus on being the CEO.”