In our ‘Inspiring small businesses’ series, we share and celebrate great stories from small business owners who started and run their own business. By bringing you closer to these inspiring businesses we hope that you find motivation, tips, and ideas for building yours. For our next interview, we spoke to Leslie McCulloch co-Founder of Miskie London an inclusive brand offering luxury underwear designed and created in the UK.

Miskie London design and create luxurious underwear in the United Kingdom. Using a super soft cotton blend, light trims and British manufacturing. Their aim is to become an inclusive brand and empowering women to be themselves in their own skin. Comfortable and sexy, Miskie London has it all.

What's the story behind your business?

Having spent a lot of time around my female friends whilst they would shop in underwear stores, I began to notice that brands would be charging a large amount for their pieces. I decided to start looking into where these garments were being manufactured and most would be made overseas and the quality of the product in relation to the price just wasn’t adding up. I then began to properly research into the lingerie/underwear market and realised there was a gap in the market, there wasn’t many ‘British made’ underwear/lingerie brands which then got me thinking, what if I was to source the softest fabrics around and use them to manufacture underwear, here in the UK? Which is when Miskie (previously known as ‘Boodica’) was founded. Me and my two co-founders would then go on to source the softest fabrics and binding to create the perfect underwear sets, we then moved onto designing and creating the product. A product that was simple, stylish and sexy.

With our design team now built, our next hurdle would be to find a UK manufacturer to create our product and begin the long process of sampling & amending. We managed that and finally, quite a few prototypes down the line, we had our first underwear sets. They were exactly what we wanted soft, light, and breathable and they looked great! Interestingly, one of our sets, the “Blush pink with black trims” was actually a miscommunication, an error that was originally meant to be pink & white, but once a few people saw the finished result, they suggested we should make it and now it’s our most popular set!

What inspired you to start your own business?

We thought this could be done better than what our competitors currently offered; a lot of the time you have to choose between fast fashion or high-priced pieces and often they are both made in huge volumes overseas. We wanted to do it differently; be a British brand that manufactures in the United Kingdom. An inclusive brand for all women; We thought it should be effortless and simple to shop underwear and we wanted to make it as close to the in store experience as we could. So our team made our site easy to navigate, implemented free next working day delivery within the UK and even added the buy now pay later option with Klarna. Our goal is to make our Miskie Family feel special so, just as they should, our products arrive with our customers beautifully packaged in our Miskie London Box.

What is the most difficult aspect of running your own business?

 Allocating money effectively from our smaller budget to maximise results has been one of the more challenging aspects.

What is the best thing about running your own business?

The best thing about running your own business is being completely free creatively & being able to implement key changes as we see them.

How has your business been affected by coronavirus and how have you adapted?

Our business has not really felt the negative effects of the pandemic as of yet, but it has slightly delayed our timeframe for being able to manufacture our pieces for obvious reasons. Only time will tell if it will have a lasting effect on the economy and our sector. In these difficult times we have decided to do what we can to help, however little. So for a three month period £5 from all sets sold goes to the National Emergencies Trust to help those most affected by covid-19.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own business?

The advice I would give someone who is starting a business is do a lot of research initially and make sure you really love what you are doing because it will be a lot of work.

To find out more about Miskie London visit their website or follow them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.