Flying by the seat of your pants! How a lawyer turned fashion entrepreneur is changing the lingerie industry, interview with Emma Parker

Emma parker, founder of lingerie brand Playful Promises ditched a legal career to pursue an ambition to empower women to feel fabulous, whatever their size.

Playful promises offers quirky, unique designs to a wide ranging audience as well as holding popular licensing deals with numerous celebrities and brands including Gabi Fresh, Felicity Hayward, Bettie Page and Hustler Hollywood.Emma recently oversaw investment from Bestport Private Equity and with ecommerce presence in the UK, US and Australia combined with rapid YoY growth, this is just the beginning of her adventure.

You’ve been quoted as saying that your first pair of ‘grown up knickers’ made you feel as though you could conquer the world. That’s quite a statement and it looks like you are! Has sharing this feeling been your primary motivation?

I remember buying that pair of knickers! They were from a French brand called Folies by Renaud. When they first started, Agent Provocateur rebranded some designs from this French brand, to give you an idea of the style. There was an iconic shop in Old Compton Street, in London called Paradiso that sold them and I bought them there. A very cool pair of knickers!

I wanted to share this feeling and opportunity to own beautifully designed things, where there is a lot of attention to detail – it brings a lot of pleasure. I enjoy aesthetically pleasing things.

Moving from legal to lingerie is a huge shift, what made you so sure it was a good move and how different is it?

Being a lawyer is a great job… for someone else. When I graduated from Uni I worked for Morgan Stanley and hated every minute of it! The realisation it could be the next few decades of my life was enough to prompt a rethink pretty quickly. I chose a Law Degree as I was the first person in my family to go to University so wanted to choose a substantial degree that could earn me a good living. I was always academic at school and wanted to change the world. However, the more I read legal philosophy, the more I realised I was not as left wing as I thought and that I was both socially and economically Liberal so my grand ideas about revolution had lost steam – but I am sure this is the tale of many young adults learning about how societies structure themselves.

I realised on graduating that I had put the expectation of the degree and career upon myself and I didn’t actually need to be a lawyer just because I studied Law. So I decided to do something different – something I was actually interested in – so it was either going to be chocolate or knickers.

These were two interest areas and gaps in the market. For chocolate it was pre Hotel Chocolat days when they totally came and improved the product quality available and I decided I preferred pants!

I’d already spotted one gap in the market after living in Japan for a year and saw conveyor belt sushi. I didn’t have the restaurant knowledge or funding so couldn’t make a go of it and then of course they started popping up. Therefore I knew whatever it was, it had to be something that I could sort and manage by myself to start up.

I’d spotted a gap in the market for a design lead on a wide range of sizes and that’s our difference we make it in 90 sizes (most only do 20).

What business knowledge did you have beforehand?

I did a terrible job at starting my business! I think sometimes you just need to start and get better with practise. Learn on the job. In hindsight, I had no idea what I was doing but if you wait for perfection you’ll never get started – so good enough is always enough to get going.

How long did it take you to get the business off the ground with designs and a supply chain.

I created my own designs and I found manufacturers in Leicester and Nottingham. The problem I had when I started my business was that I didn’t have much business acumen. I didn’t understand about gross profit and how to price things. Initially I didn’t price my goods high enough to make sufficient gross profit. People loved my designs. I exhibited at the trade show Erotica, 16 years ago in Earls Court, and by the end of the show I had sold every single piece that had been made. Lots of shop keepers wanted to stock the goods but I was having difficulties with the pricing and then had financial difficulties.

So I thought OK I need to be more business minded and in 2009 decided to move my supply chain out of the UK. I went to China and found factories who work with small businesses like me, making 200-300 pieces, so started working with them. This completely changed my gross profit and made my business financially viable. It was still just me in the business. I was young and inexperienced so learnt as I grew.

You’ve got a refreshing approach to how you choose your models, has this played a big part in your success? 

It’s really important that you can look at something and imagine yourself in it. As a society it’s important to have a much wider definition of beauty. One of the things about fashion that I dislike is that traditionally fashion was sold to make you feel better about yourself. As a teenager I hated fashion, I would only wear 2^nd hand clothes but realised it was how it was marketed. So I wanted to do something with fashion to allow you to express yourself and choose how you want to be, not to make yourself better. Our imagery has always been inclusive even before that became fashionable.

We shouldn’t have to ask this is 2021, but have you come up against any barriers due to being a female in business?

No barriers to raising capital. I’ve pitched to investors 3 times and got offers each time, but for the first two I decided to continue by myself as wasn’t ready to share my toys at that point. Every single person I pitched to I felt that they were only interested in the numbers and potential and couldn’t have cared less that I was also a woman. However, some companies that provide services to my company have been quite sexist and very inappropriate to me.

How are you finding being part of a PE portfolio?

Very positive so far with Bestport. They’re a small private equity firm, so very hands on, and a boutique business which matches us. We had another offer from a much larger PE firm and although they had a small business department they were so much more corporate. Going out and meeting various PE people,  there is a different approach across the board, even within the PE industry. BestPort have given us advice and areas to look at that we may not have thought about even in the short time we have been working together. One of the Bestport team has joined as a chairperson with lots of experience and he is helping us push the business to the next level, not just financially, and its been very beneficial to us. We are defining our strategy a lot, defining the data and defining our future.

What advice would you give to any aspiring entrepreneurs with an itch to get into retail?

Try and find something that is niche so that you are offering something that is not already in the market. Focus on ecommerce as Covid has removed the barrier that seemed to exist previously and people will always do internet shopping. Retail will become about the experience and physical retail will become more of a marketing tool rather than somewhere to shop.

And use the data!

And specifically to women?

Go for it. There is nothing holding you back. You can make your business work for you even if you have a family. A co director in the business has just had a baby but she is key to the business and has been there from the beginning. She has the flexibility to work around family life and make it work for her.

Quick fire round.

Beach or mountain? Beach

Fine wine or cocktails? Cocktails

Home working or office? Office

Fast car or luxury car? Luxury car

Movies or books? Books

Favourite? Brave New World by Aldous Huxley – he made the observation that ‘people will come to love the technology that impairs their capability to think’  – which screams social media to me! I read this book as a teenager and it has stayed with me.

Some sound advice there from someone who has done a lot of learning on the job and it’s evident that this is still early days in an exciting adventure, good luck Emma!

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