Pamela Scott chats to Tiffany Chiu, founder of the JulieMay brand: the underwear brand has been accredited by Allergy UK as being friendly for consumers who suffer from skin allergies and offers ethical manufacturing from start to finish. With her own B2C e-site, she is intending to wholesale the brand in the UK & Ireland and has ambitions to turn the brand into an international label. This multi-talented businesswoman also acts as a business mentor but still finds time for tennis and her beloved canine companion, Mipi.
Your previous life?
I am originally from Hong Kong and came here to study Law at the University of Edinburgh. I have been in the UK for more than ten years and after I graduated with my law Master’s, I came up with the allergy-friendly underwear brand idea.
So why did you start the Julie May brand?
My mom gave birth to my little sisters and she developed rashes on her breasts. I was trying to find relief for her skin conditions but could not find anything to avoid all allergic triggers. I decided to quit my law career and start my brand to help women who, like my mum, who struggle to find pretty, allergy-free and supportive bras.
The journey was full of obstacles and challenges, but I feel so rewarded when I receive a customer’s feedback saying how grateful they are to find my brand. I think I am doing something valuable and worthwhile to the community. Being the only brand in the UK that offers underwear for women who suffer from skin conditions, I strive to turn JulieMay into the world’s No.1 underwear brand in the allergy-free market.
How did you get started?
I have been sponsored by my University for the Start-up Visa and I am now settled in Kent, in a beautiful house with a big garden and a lovely golden retriever. I am hugely grateful for all the support I have received from the University and other start-up organisations. After spending years validating my products and the niche market, I started to give back and devote my time as a mentor and a judge during time out for students who wish to start their own businesses.
My journey as a business mentor so far:
– One of the Government Help To Grow: Management scheme mentors;
- Mentoring in the Queen Mary University of London Incubators to help students start their businesses;
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Be a judge at the University of Greenwich and the Queen Mary University of London funding competitions to assign funding to the right candidates.
As an ethnically diverse female founder, I love supporting others with the same background as myself during my leisure time. I enjoy helping them to develop their business ideas and supporting and guiding them through the journey.
What are the highlights of the JulieMay Collection?
JulieMay is an allergy-friendly lingerie brand. Many of our customers suffer from eczema, and skin allergies to latex, synthetics, elastane, nickels, harsh chemicals etc. Our customers are also mainly aged 30+ and mature women who have developed allergies or sensitive skin due to menopause.
Our products have been certified by the Allergy Free UK. Many of our customers have regained their confidence and comfort as our products are feminine, allergy-free, sustainable and ethically made.
The market we are targeting is very niche. We have two main competitors, one is called Allergy Best Buys and another is Cottonique with plain designs and only non-wired styles. At JulieMay we offer elegant and feminine designs with underwired support for the biggest breasts’ ladies as well as non-wired styles. Our size range from 32B to 40G.
And how is JulieMay unique?
JulieMay Lingerie has three unique brand values:
Allergy-Friendly: Allergy-Free UK has certified all my products to be friendly for people allergic to synthetic fibres, latex, elastic and sensitive skins;
Organic: we use Certified Organic Pima Cotton as the main fabric to make the collections luxuriously soft;
Ethical: At JulieMay, all products are made at the exclusive production site which conforms to sustainable, environemental-friendly and fair standards.
And your supply chain?
All our collections are designed by local UK designers and made in our exclusive supply chain in Hong Kong. My family business is in clothing manufacture for over 30 years and we own the supply chain. Our production site has been certified with ISO14001 and OHSAS 18001 ensuring sustainable production.
Ethical fashion production is essential to us at JulieMay. We source Certified Organic Pima Cotton as the main fabric. We only use eco-friendly detergents and softeners during the washing—no harmful dyes and bleach. We also use a small vat to minimise water usage during the dyeing process.
Your proudest moment to date?
In terms of the proudest moments of being a brand owner, I have had so many achievements for the brand so far. We have been featured in the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Independent and the Evening Standard. And we won the London Prestige Award, the Best Lingerie Brand of the Year. We also won a place in the Amazon Launchpad, and we are the winner of the Lloyds bank x Foundervine Accelerator Dragon’s Den.
We also partnered with the University of Portsmouth to support their research in Breast Health. And we are looking to create so much more and give back to our female UK communities.
As a sustainable brand, we work with Greenspark. With every order our customers place, we plant trees in the Eden Reforestation Project, an UN-endorsed project in Nicaragua. We also donate part of our sales to support the Plastic Bank project to help over 5,000 people in Haiti, Brazil, the Philippines, and Indonesia earn a fair, sustainable income by collecting plastic waste. We continue to expand our impact via our partner Greenspark to support more projects like Hydroelectric Energy in Chile and improving cook stoves in Malawi to offset our carbon footprints. JulieMay Lingerie is making a big impact on the existing market and providing the best underwear in the allergy-free market.
All these tractions and achievements make me proud as the founder of JulieMay Lingerie.
In personal terms, my proudest moment is when I decided to quit my law career, disregard all common sense judgment and create something in the intimate apparel industry!! But I love this industry.
Why have you decided to look towards B2B distribution/wholesale?
Because no business can grow alone, especially in the intimate apparel industry where customers’ fitting is vital. Every woman is unique in her shape, and finding a right fit bra is very difficult. Selling B2B allows my customers to find their perfect fit in stores with the help of bra fitting specialists. It will be a win-win situation for my customers, retailers and JulieMay Lingerie.
Your next big challenge?
R&D will be the next big challenge of the brand. I believe all businesses across all industries have two important pillars – Innovation and Marketing.
When I started in 2018, I barely had one sale in a month. I learned to talk to customers and listen carefully to what they want. I spent all my time researching the best fabric combination based on their feedback and source materials that will not trigger any irritation to the skins. I’m proud to say JulieMay Lingerie is the only brand that uses Certified Organic Pima Cotton with Pure Silk inner linings for underwear. And the only one to wrap all elasticated parts with a layer of Pima Cotton to avoid allergies and bras digging in. I studied and found a dyeing process and digital printing to avoid all the harmful chemicals, which allows me to create beautiful patterns that customers feel feminine and confident wearing.
Everything I’ve done so far has paid off – I have gained thousands of loyal customers within 1 year’s growth with a customer retention rate of 60%.
I will never stop moving forward. I will keep looking for innovation and material revolution in the intimate apparel industry. I am currently developing an innovative R & D project with the help of the Knowledge Transfer Partnership of the University of Kent.
Your worst move so far?
Didn’t do my customer research well enough in the first two years of the business.
I have to admit that I have wasted a lot of money on low conversion marketing campaigns. If I could go back, I would have done things completely differently. I would only plan a campaign with a strong customer focus. Deliver engaging, interactive and informative content rather than selling.
But I am grateful to have a group of very loyal customers passionate about the brand. They are willing to participate in any testing or fittings and keen to give feedback. I now collect all my customers’ feedback before I draft any marketing campaigns. They also tell me what size they need, what cup shape they want and what style/colour they want to add to our next collections. I collect all those suggestions for our designers before they start to design. We will adjust our sizing and product details according to their detailed feedback.
This is one of the biggest things I have learned from my lessons. My brand is always evolving to customers’ needs.
A Typical Week…in your life
Work -> Tennis -> Dog Walk -> Work
My passions outside work are tennis and dogs. lol
I play in a tennis club as a member. My golden retriever is called Mipi (a Chinese noodle name). She is the best that I can have in my life. And I owe her a forever debt for making my life so much better with her in it.
Ultimately what do you hope to achieve?
There are so many things that I would like to achieve. If it is work-related, I am looking to keep growing the brand in the UK and expand to the US and Canadian markets as I see potential there. My ambition for JulieMay is to become the worlds’ top No. 1 underwear brand in the allergy free market. If it is not work-related, then my tennis serve and passing my driving test. 🙂
