Bravissimo
IndustryRetail
Founded1995 (1995)
HeadquartersLeamington Spa, United Kingdom
ProductsLingerie, swimwear, nightwear, clothing
Websitewww.bravissimo.com www.bravissimo.com/us

Bravissimo is a lingerie retailer that provides lingerie in D-L cup sizes and swimwear in a D-K cup range.[1] It has 26 stores[2] across the UK 1 store in the US and also sell via mail order, online and via a US website.[3] They are based in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, and currently employ over 400 people.[4]

History

Bravissimo store

Founder Sarah Tremellen MBE[5] began as a freelance TV and radio researcher for the BBC before quitting eight months later aged 25 to have a baby. Whilst pregnant, Tremellen found it difficult to find a good choice of bras that would fit her when she went up to a G Cup.[6]

In 1995 after giving birth, Tremellen and her friend Hannah Griffiths tried to do something about it. They decided to take an eight-week business course which culminated in presenting a business plan to their local bank manager. Their presentation won them a £10,000 bank loan to help them start Bravissimo.[7]

Working in Tremellen's living room of her Twickenham flat, they made a catalogue to sell by mail order with all the best bras they could find and started a mailing list of around 75 people—mostly friends and family. Tremellen then telephoned several women's magazines and newspapers, and within a month got coverage in the Daily Mail bringing in 1,000 requests for a catalogue.[8]

In 1996 they were able to move out of Tremellen's Twickenham flat and 12 months later Tremellen and her husband Mike bought Hannah Griffiths out of the business.[5] In November 1999, Bravissimo opened its first shop in Ealing which is one of the 16 stores nationwide they currently operate.[8] The next year Mike Tremellen left his job at Tetley to become the business operations director.[5]

In 2001 Bravissimo relocated to their current headquarters in Leamington Spa.[6]

In 2017, Bravissimo launched its US website and began looking for its first US shop site. In the same year their sales grew by 2% to £50.2 million, but pre-tax profit decreased to £2.2 million from £3.3 million a year earlier, partly owing to spending on new shops.[9]

Bravissimo sold a clothing range for a number of years, at one point branding this as "Pepperberry", but the clothing range was discontinued in 2021.[10]

Management

In December 2020, Leanne Cahill, the managing director of Bravissimo, has been elevated to chief executive.[11][12]

Awards

Bravissimo has been in the Sunday Times "100 Best Companies to work for" list for since 2007, when they came 19th;[13] in 2018 they were awarded 13th place.[14] The list rates a company's performance on 8 key factors which takes into account things such as pay, leadership, social impact and personal growth.[15] They were awarded 99th, 26th,[16] 24th[17] and 8th place respectively between 2008 - 2011.[18] In 2011 Bravissimo was nominated for the Multiple Retailer of the Year award at the UK Lingerie Awards[18]

Sarah Tremellen was awarded an MBE in 2009 in the New Year’s Honours List for services to entrepreneurship.[5] In 2017, Bravissimo won 'best multi-product E-tailer' at the Underlines Stars Awards [19] At the UK Lingerie Awards in 2018, Bravissimo won "Customer Service Provider of the Year",[20] and Sarah Tremellen won the UKLA Lifetime Achievement Award.[21]

References

  1. ↑ "Bravissimo Company Profile - Best Companies". Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  2. ↑ "Find a store". Bravissimo. Retrieved 28 August 2021.
  3. ↑ "Pepperberry helps spice up Bravissimo performance". Drapers online. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  4. ↑ "Accreditation". Best Companies. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Bravissimo founder honoured with MBE after starting firm from home". Birmingham Post. 31 December 2008. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  6. 1 2 "Sarah Tremellen: Founder of Bravissimo". Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  7. ↑ "Bravissimo". Archived from the original on 25 November 2011. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  8. 1 2 Grossman, Wendy (2 December 2002). "Starting Out". The Telegraph. Retrieved 17 August 2018 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  9. ↑ "Lingerie firm Bravissimo is ready to make it big Stateside". Evening Standard.
  10. ↑ "Top fashion brand to stop making clothes for "big boobed women"". Retrieved 28 August 2021.
  11. ↑ Stone, Danielle (15 December 2020). "Bravissimo names Leanne Cahill as new chief executive". Fashion United. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  12. ↑ Jahshan, Elias (11 December 2020). "Bravissimo promotes MD Leanne Cahill to CEO". Retail Gazette. Archived from the original on 11 December 2020. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  13. ↑ "The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For list". Sunday Times. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  14. ↑ "The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies". Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  15. ↑ "What is employee engagement? - Best Companies". Archived from the original on 5 September 2013. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  16. ↑ "百度--您的访问出错了". hi.baidu.com. Archived from the original on 9 July 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  17. ↑ Universityguru (10 November 2010). "UniversityGuru: 100 Best Companies to work for 2010". Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  18. 1 2 "Lingerie Awards Finalists Revealed". Lingerie Insight. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  19. ↑ "Congratulations to the 2017 Stars!". Stars Underlines. 10 November 2017.
  20. ↑ "UKLA 2018 winner: Customer Service Provider of the Year - Lingerie Insight". 20 February 2018. Archived from the original on 16 August 2018. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  21. ↑ "UKLA 2018 winner: Lifetime Achievement Award - Lingerie Insight". 20 February 2018. Archived from the original on 16 August 2018. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.