The Intimate Story Behind a Lingerie Startup

Like so many grad students, Morgan Hermand-Waiche had champagne taste and a beer budget. Or rather, La Perla taste and a Fruit of the Loom budget.

In 2009, Mr. Hermand-Waiche was attending Harvard Business School and dating a fellow student. For their anniversary, he wanted to impress her with a gift of fine lingerie.

“I found there weren’t many brands that were as nice as what I wanted for her but in the price range of my broke student budget,” Mr. Hermand-Waiche says. “And then I thought, God, if I see that problem and I don’t buy lingerie every day, what must it be like for women who need to purchase these things more often but can’t find anything that looks nice, fits well and is a reasonable price?”

He knew it wouldn’t be an easy field to break into—a lesson he had learned from his experience at his family’s fashion business in France, and his own research into the industry.

“There is no one garment more complex to manufacture: A bra is made of 60 different components, while a traditional garment is usually made of five or up to 10 components, max,” Mr. Hermand-Waiche says. “So then you have to order way in advance and you have to order in large volumes because otherwise your manufacturer will say, sorry, that’s too complex for me to just make a thousand.”

That means, he says, to start a new lingerie company, you need to design at least 100 different bras in order to offer enough options, and you have to order about 10,000 of each, a year in advance. “So you’re buying a million bras, a year before you can sell one,” he says.

Managing those logistics would take a lot of capital, so Mr. Hermand-Waiche spent his first two years in business raising $11.5 million. The effort paid off. Since he officially opened shop in 2012, AdoreMe has sold over a million products, and will open branded stores in the U.S. in 2016.

The girlfriend who inspired the business, though, is no longer part of the picture. “We’re not together anymore,” Mr. Hermand-Waiche says. “I guess it’s just life.”

Write to reports@wsj.com

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Clever and cute cat keyhole bra is only one-fourth of lingerie set’s feline charms 【Photos】

Unique intimate apparel is sure to have your bedroom partner purring with satisfaction.

Every now and then, we’ll see one of the stories we’ve published here at RocketNews24 have a resurgence in popularity months after it originally appeared on the site. That was the case last weekend for an article originally from last year about Japan’s kitten boob sweater.

But if you’re going to wear such an expressive item of clothing, it only stands to reason that you should pair it with equally distinct lingerie. Thankfully, you can keep the bold feline motif going with the cat keyhole lingerie set.

While there’s no locking mechanism on the bra, it does feature a cat-shaped cutaway which creates some cute/sexy synergy.

The feline fetishism doesn’t stop there, though. Moving to the bottom half of the set, the waistline of the panties has two peaks evocative of cat ears.

The cords that tie at the hip also feature tiny little paws…

…and if you swing your gaze around to the back, you’ll find one more pawprint.

Rounding out the three-piece set is the bell-equipped choker, which adds a final playful touch and should also warn any nearby mice of your impending approach.

While this sort of intimate apparel design seems like it should be right up Japan’s alley, the cat keyhole bra and panties spear to be Chinese in origin, although with an obvious nod towards Japan’s culture of cuteness. The set can be purchased for US$34 here from Shanghai-based Pocket Tokyo, or here for US$21.24 from AliExpress, a subdivision of Chinese online retailing giant Alibaba.

Source: IT Media
Top image: Pocket Tokyo
Inset images: Pocket Tokyo, AliExpress (edited by RocketNews24)

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