I own a LOT of Bravissimo clothing. I’ve been a massive Bravissimo fan over the years… at last, a company that understood that customers like me – hourglass curvy with bigger boobs – are fashion conscious, like stylish, good quality clothes and, most importantly, go in at the middle. Yep, even though I’ve put on some weight since I started shopping with them, Bravissimo ensured that I could look good and not have to dress in a tent-like top or look matronly to accommodate my bust.
This year, Bravissimo launched Pepperberry, separating their lingerie/ nightwear and clothing brands. Hooray, I thought, a bigger range of clothes to fit me!
But it seems Pepperberry may not really be looking for people like me to be customers.
The first thing that has changed is that the models have gone super-skinny.
One of the nice things about shopping for Bravissimo clothes was that looking at the models in the catalogue/ online gave at reasonable impression of what the clothes might actually look like on me. Now, thanks to the models’ skinniness and the online images of the outfits without anyone in them, I’m back to the guesswork I have to apply when looking at any other clothing company.
The next thing to have changed is, it seems, the quality. Everything seems thin, sheer, and stitching seems to come undone at the seems (my new blue fifties style wrap dress is suffering from this).
It seems I’m not the only person to have notice this – the Pepperberry Facebook page is filled with a mix of fans excited at having received new clothes they love, and those experiencing disappointment. More of that later, but importantly, many commenters were leaving messages to this effect.
It’s probably worth noting that this issue is not unique to Pepperberry – many high street names seem to be using suppliers that are less bothered about high quality than in the past – perhaps this is connected to the recession? But given the price point of Pepperberry clothes, this is really not a good thing.
The next thing to have changed is sizing: when you are a company that differentiates itself by producing a range of clothes tailored to customers who have an issue with standard high street sizing it is fairly fundamental to get this right…
Essentially, Bravissimo clothes came in three bust sizes: curvy, really curvy and super curvy, relating to cup size. Clear instructions told you to ignore your standard high street size and measure so that you could get a correct fit. I never found this a problem.
I ordered my usual Bravissimo size from Pepperberry’s new website in my first order from them. To my surprise and disappointment, the 16SC was tight on the bust, and the length of the ditsy floral dress would’ve been fabulous if I was 16 but not suited to me at present where it is far too short. I kept the denim skirt, but will only really be able to wear it with tights underneath for fear of being arrested for indecency. A quick skim through dress lengths in Pepperberry’s current collection showed that I’m too tall for much of it – and yes I’m a little above UK average height, but this was never a problem with Bravissimo clothes! As for hip sizes, I knew that for shift-style dresses I needed to go up a dress size from my high street standard, and flared skirts no problem at all.
After much chuntering from fans on the Pepperberry Facebook page, Pepperberry – which does actually engage with its customers this way, and full credit it to them for it – put out the following statement:
As many of you will have experienced, there has been a lack of consistency in the sizing of Bravissimo clothes in the past. Last year we reviewed our measurements following customer feedback and some additional research into high street sizing in preparation for the launch of Pepperberry.
In terms of our curvy sizes, much of the feedback that we received from our customers was that our styles were too full over the boobs. Previously we designed our garments to fit a range of bust measurements in each size, and we discovered that over time we had generally been increasing the amount of bust room in each curvy size so that instead of being a perfect fit for someone measuring in the middle of a curvy size (and being correspondingly a little more snug on someone at the top end and a little looser on someone at the bottom end) we were often creating a perfect fit for someone at the very top of the curvy size range instead. So over time our curvy sizes generally got bigger, although the amount they grew varied depending on the actual size and the type of style – but it meant that many customers were finding they had to buy a curvy size smaller than they measured. The result of this was that customers who measured ‘Curvy’ ended up too small for any of our clothes, even though they found fitted high street clothes too tight on the bust – and we received lots and lots of feedback to this affect.
Following extensive fittings in store and analysis of customer feedback, we adjusted our measurements to provide a consistent fit over the curviness sizing using set measurements from within the original measurement ranges. To further improve the fit we also reduced the amount of gathers we added over and around the boob area in some garments, as this had exacerbated the problem further. As a result of these changes some of you may notice that the curvy sizes in many styles are smaller than they have been previously but you should now find the sizing to be consistent. These changes have mainly affected the Curvy and Really Curvy sizes across the range, with smaller changes being made to our Super Curvy sizes. However, although the changes to Super Curvy garments have not been so great, we know the changes mean some people who used to find a Super Curvy fitted them in some styles are now finding it difficult to fit into our clothes at all. If this applies to you please let us know – we are currently trialling development of a ‘Super Duper Curvy’ size and as well as assessing how well this works and whether people like the garments in these sizes, we need to assess demand to ensure development would be viable.
We have also reviewed our waist and hip measurements following lots of customer comments to say that our clothes were coming up roughly one size bigger than standard UK dress sizes. We have recently adjusted the grading to bring our dress sizes in line with the high street and to ensure consistency across the range so you should now find that if you are generally a UK size 12 you fit into Pepperberry size 12.
I hope this makes sense and clears up some of the problems you have been experiencing. Please do continue to let us have your feedback on the sizing, we hope that you will find consistency across the range now and rely on you to let us know if this isn’t the case. Our aim is to provide fashionable clothes that offer a fit solution for women with bigger boobs who are between dress sizes 8 to 18.
Now, I don’t know, but I have to wonder… there is presumably a reason why high street shops opt to sell clothes in the sizes they do. I’d imagine it has something to do with maximising the potential number of customers. If you ask a widespread number of women what they want, they will presumably come up with something like the high street norm. The problem will be for the outliers – too small or too large in part or in whole to find a good fit at that average.
So what that basically means is because the focus will be on those that are a bit smaller than what had been average Bravissimo sizing, I now need to buy the largest Pepperberry size – 18SC – in everything, and if that’s too small, thank you and good night. But if a Super Duper Curvy is introduced, that might help a bit. I might only need to say goodbye to the shift-style dresses.
Bravissimo clothing had a niche market, women who are not enormous blobs (they only go up to an 18), but have big boobs and want more space in their clothes at the bust.
With high street retailers like Monsoon cutting the room in the busts of their clothes, more of us had come to depend on Bravissimo for fashionable, 20- and 30- something appropriate well-fitting clothes.
I will keep buying Pepperberry’s slightly longer clothes in the ego-shattering larger size and hoping that it will fit. But I don’t really have anywhere else to go.
I think the reason so many of us seem to be taking this corporate decision quite personally is because wearing well fitting, stylish clothes give us confidence. To suddenly find your source of these is in doubt shakes the confidence.
Fans know this, and the Pepperberry Facebook page is providing a peer-customer-level support and campaign space. Real women upload mobile phone photos of themselves wearing the clothes, which while never as flattering as one might hope when ordering the clothes, they give a much better indication of the fit than the skinny models do.
It’s worth noting too that Bravissimo pieces get quite high “used” prices on Ebay which shows the level of fan love for the clothes. Some people do actually advertise on the Pepperberry site when they are selling old clothes on Ebay (I’ve found this useful as an Ebay addict! 
)
But it’s the mutual support – the “likes” on the photos, the comments and the horror against the resizing, the “don’t worry it’s me too” that make it a good page to read. Of course I know that people that feel strongly for or against something are more likely to comment – I write a blog after all – and that they may not be representative of the average customer. Fine, but sometimes speaking up matters.
Pepperberry do actually comment too, thanking customers for positive comments, and now- after a bit of a shaky start – saying sorry to those that are disappointed, and offering their (lovely) customer service staff as the place to turn to. In fact, they’ve got good social media customer engagement going on there. I’m impressed with that.
I really hope they note that it is not the same 5 disappointed customers commenting over and over again, but different names as different people receive their orders.
It would be great if they took note of the pleas from those of us at the super curvy end of the scale.
And while I don’t need it at present, if they would contemplate doing the size 20-24 clothes they could skim off some of the middle section of the Evans market… just a thought…
Over 1700 people “like” Pepperberry on Facebook, and a fair number seem to be emotionally invested too as I’ve tried to explain.
Reducing the clothing sizes might be good business sense. Or they might have boobed.
But to us, it matters that we have something good to wear.
After all, as Mark Twain said “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society“.
