Spotlight On UK Intimates’ Brand Fruity Booty – We Interview The 2 Co-Owners

Being a woman in the 21st century can be hard. Between perfectly edited IG models, Victoria’s Secret’s elite army of angels and celebrities that look like they’ve jumped out of a glossy advert, it’s tough to learn to accept and love yourself just the way you are.

This train process has led the two London-based millennials, Minna Bunting and Hattie Tennant, to launch their intimates’ brand Fruity Booty in late 2017.

With its range of dainty bras, cute crop tops and printed underwear, Fruity Booty has been quickly gaining in popularity. On the website, the co-founders’ message shines through an ethnically diverse range of beautiful women of all different shapes and sizes, all cleverly put in scene through natural photographs that have a no-fuss, retro feel to them.

We’ve talked to the girls about their brand, their customer and their goals.

What sparked the idea to create Fruity Booty?

Fruity Booty is our attempt to change what society considers as ‘sexy’ in the underwear industry by shifting the focus from the idealized woman to simply celebrating normality.

What has been the biggest challenge when you started off?

Creating the perfect product and being able to charge it at the price we wanted to, has been a big challenge for us. We massively underestimated how complicated it is to make some of the products. A bra, for example, is made out of more than 20 components.
Then, you have to consider the different shapes and sizes of women’s boobs and come up with a plan how to cater to all of them. Once you have a product that’s considerate of all this, plus is produced in an ethically correct way and not in high-street quantities, it’s hard to charge an affordable price.

50% of our collections are made of repurposed fabrics and materials that would have otherwise gone to waste. Half of our production is carried out in London and, as of recently, we have banned our manufacturer to send our garments in individual plastic packaging.

What does ‘sexy’ mean to you?

Confidence is an over-used answer when it comes to this, but we genuinely believe that it’s the key to being sexy.

If you had to describe femininity in three words, what would you say?

That’s a hard question, simply because I don’t think that there’s only one version of femininity which can be described in three words. I believe that being feminine means different things at different times to different people.
Sometimes, I’d say it’s about bravery while other times, my answer would be understanding. It really depends on the situation.

In a world that’s concerned with the environmental effects of clothes production, how important is a sustainable approach to creating intimates to you?

Sustainability is extremely important to us - and rightfully so. If you find a clothing brand that still doesn’t consider its effects on the environment nowadays, you should be worried.

Underwear is different to clothing when it comes to repurposing and recycling though, as it’s not something people usually share or easily sell on and it’s difficult to make it last forever. With that in mind, we try to be as environmentally conscious as possible when creating new items. We’re definitely not perfect, but we’re always trying to improve ourselves and the brand.

50% of our collections are made of repurposed fabrics and materials that would have otherwise gone to waste. Half of our production is carried out in London and, as of recently, we have banned our manufacturer to send our garments in individual plastic packaging.

Being transparent is also of massive importance when it comes to the production process. The more people understand what goes into producing underwear - or clothing in general - the more considerate they will hopefully be when it comes to their clothes. We hope that sort of knowledge will lead to people treating their things with more care instead of seeing them as easily disposable objects. 

We also love to go to our manufacturers and see for ourselves how the pieces are being made. It’s truly an eye-opening experience that we want to share with our customers as well.

Your press video as well as your website have a very natural, fun and retro feel to them. How does this aesthetic relate to the message you’re trying to convey?

We wanted to move away from this hyper-sexualised, highly airbrushed and glossy imagery that we see everywhere. With this, we hope that it’ll make our brand more relatable and approachable.

Who is the Fruity Booty woman?

A woman that doesn’t necessarily feel like she can relate to what’s out there. She’s someone who considers her underwear to be an extension of her wardrobe rather than a cut-off alter ego.

What can we expect from you guys in the near future?

You’ll see more collaborations with interesting people, improvements in terms of our sustainability mission, a greater range in sizes and obviously more designs which we hope, our Fruity Booty women will love. 

 

Want to know more? Head over to the Fruity Booty webshop.

 

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