[Suits]

When men invent a new product or exploit demand that exceeds supply, they are just doing business. Not so with women. The finer sex doesn't just execute a business strategy. NO! They are challenging the status quo for fixing the world that has been ruined by stupid men.

Of course, they'll need donated money to get started, because a bank loan would be below them.

That being said, I'm glad this product is on the market, because I disagree with the early sexualisation of women and don't think that they need to be wearing padded bras.

The decision by the writer to turn a smart business venture into a humanitarian issue is, however, very obnoxious.

http://www.lingerietalk.com/2014/04/08/l...ustry.html

Quote:

It took only one trip to the mall to show Megan Grassell what was wrong with the bra industry. And 10 months of hard work to figure out how to change it.

Today, the 18-year-old high school senior from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is the founder of Yellowberry, an underwear company that’s making wholesome, age-appropriate bras for girls aged 11-15.

That’s the sort of thing Megan couldn’t find a year ago when she took her kid sister Mary Margaret, then 13, shopping for her first bra.

“It was an awkward moment for her, but a chance for me to show off my sisterly knowledge,” Megan wrote in the Kickstarter pitch that helped get Yellowberry off the ground.

“I couldn’t believe the bras that she was supposed to buy,” she added. “The choices for her, and for all girls her age, were simply appalling to me. They were all padded, push-up and sexual. Not only that, they did not fit her body properly, which automatically made me wonder ‘Where were the young, cute and realistic bras for girls?’ There were none!”

That ‘Eureka!’ moment was the spark that created Yellowberry — and may have ripple effects throughout the teen lingerie world, which has been the target of significant consumer activism in recent years.

“It was literally like an epiphany,” Megan told Lingerie Talk this week. “I was holding a bra in my hands and I just said, ‘This is not okay. I’m going to make bras for girls.’”

She turned to the crowdfunding site Kickstarter hoping to raise $25,000 to launch Yellowberry, and was stunned by the response. When the 30-day campaign ended on Sunday, it had raised almost $42,000 to finance Yellowberry’s first production order, making it one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever for an underwear or lingerie start-up.

Yellowberry is as much a movement as it is a bra company, using its marketing and merchandising platform to fight back against the hyper-sexualized commercial environment that adolescent girls face every day. Fans are called “Berries” and the company’s motto — “Changing the bra industry for young girls” — boldly challenges the status quo.

“Yellowberry will be different because at the core of the company what we want to do is sell a bra in a non-sexy way,” Megan said. “In lingerie, that’s a new idea.”

“For those girls aged 11 to 15 the options they have to buy are for the most part overly sexual. They need a different bra that doesn’t scream ‘sex’.

“You shouldn’t have to buy a sequined push-up bra when you’re 13. You shouldn’t have to feel pressured to look a certain way.”

Yellowberry is already on the market, with a professional website and online shop selling two youth bra styles in four colors, with cute names like ‘Tweetheart’ and ‘Tiny Teton’ for about $40. The cotton-spandex pieces are soft and metal-free, designed to provide a comfortable transition between children’s undershirts and the style-driven world of molded cups and T-shirt bras that lies ahead.

“Yellowberry gives girls the idea that they don’t have to grow up so quickly,” Megan said.

“We’re not saying what’s right or wrong. It’s not my right to tell someone what’s appropriate or not,” she added. “I just want everyone to have another option.”

The Yellowberry name is a symbol of the need to nurture adolescent girls during a critical and challenging time in their development.

“Think about a berry before you pick it,” Megan said. “It’s still yellow. It’s not yet ripe. It has to go through certain stages until it is ripe. And you can’t rush those stages because they are what will eventually create a beautiful berry.”

Megan had no experience in business or fashion when she came up with the concept for Yellowberry, but that didn’t stop her.

She worked with a seamstress in Jackson Hole to develop prototypes, sourced a manufacturer in Los Angeles and spent months fit-testing samples with the help of local friends.

She had a gut feeling the concept would catch fire, but after the first four days of her Kickstarter campaign, Yellowberry had received only $2,000 in donations and little attention. Undaunted, Megan reached out to Facebook groups, companies and online groups that promoted causes aimed at empowering young women.

Then, however, schoolwork intervened and Megan headed to Guatemala for a week-long class trip, a journey that left her without internet access for a full day.

When the students arrived at their Guatemala City hotel, Megan plugged in her computer, checked her Kickstarter campaign … and started crying. Yellowberry had gone viral overnight, and was already past its $25,000 funding goal.

More than 1,000 donors contributed to the campaign, many of them young girls — and their parents — who are enthusiastically supportive of the new company and its mission.

Part of Yellowberry‘s undeniable appeal is its authentic marketing (the company’s promotional photos use non-professional models) and the heartfelt values embodied in its mission statement.

Yellowberry espouses six ‘mantras’ that are printed on its hangtags, and which were written years ago following the tragic death at age 5 of Megan’s youngest sister Caroline, who fell from moving float during a parade.

Those mantras, written by Caroline’s godparents as a tribute to the little girl’s bright spirit, encourage people to celebrate their youth in a loving and natural way… and not feel so rushed. ‘Water the flowers everyday’. ‘Watch quietly and observe’. ‘Find a hug when you need one’. ‘Go barefoot’. And finally, ‘Campfires are rare; eat as many marshmallows as you can’.

Megan has taken those truths and applied them to Yellowberry‘s business plan and its broader purpose of supporting young girls.

“Caroline is still powerful in my mind,” she writes in her biographical sketch on the Yellowberry website. “She taught me through both her life and her sudden death to slow down and enjoy each day as its own.

“These statements help reiterate the values behind my simple goal: build a bra that is unique, colorful and young made for all girls who love and enjoy their youthful, yellow stages in life.”

While her classmates look for summer jobs, Megan will be running Yellowberry full-time (with her mother, Lynn) until next spring when she heads to college in Vermont. The company is already working on future designs and hopes to offer underwear choices with its next collection.

In the meantime, she has a message for all those mall brands targeting pubescent girls with sparkly, padded push-up bras.

“Girls come in a lot of shapes and sizes, but the bras I seen when I go shopping all look the same,” Megan said. “They’re creating a false sense of variety. Not everything has to look so similar.”

[HeyPete]

I'm gonna demand this chick make me the CFO or COO of this company. I'm sick of the glass ceiling and I want to ride her coat tails to fund my independent, empowered brave lifestyle.

[spokepoker]

When did mothers stop teaching their daughters the pencil test?

[Faust]

Quote:

She turned to the crowdfunding site Kickstarter hoping to raise $25,000 to launch Yellowberry, and was stunned by the response. When the 30-day campaign ended on Sunday, it had raised almost $42,000 to finance Yellowberry’s first production order, making it one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever for an underwear or lingerie start-up.

What the hell is going on with our society that there multiple Kickstarter campaigns going on for underwear/lingerie start-ups?

[funkyzeit]

-Offering a non sexualizing product to girls when their hormones are raging and all they think about is a hard dick
-Suceeding in business

Pick one and only one.

[Rotisserie]

This is not a real 'market gap.' My ex, who's in her mid 20s, sleeps in a cotton-y bra that's meant to be completely non-sexual. She wears it to sleep b/c it's comfortable. My gfs from middle to high school, meaning 11-on, all had variations of these similar cottony bras. I actually found them incredibly hot in that they were so soft.

This little 'entrepreneur' is not the first person to worry about overtly sexual bras for young developing girls. I posit this was a concern since the first bra was made. Maybe she did shake her head when she was bra shopping and found something that wasn't age appropriate. Perhaps she should have looked in a nearby rack.

So when people say her 'decision to make it a humanitarian issue is obnoxious,' yes, it's annoying, but it's the only reason it made enough $ in the first place. This was not a 'smart business decision.' Just because an 18 year old wears bras doesn't mean she knows anything about selling them. She simply found the magic words that make people throw their money away.

[soup]

What does it mean for a girl to grow up these days?

The way the chick in the article talks about it, it's as if the young girls are inevitably going to grow into some sex in the city slut, and she's worried that it's happening too early.

Bras don't make girls slutty, people make girls slutty. If she's worried about girls having sex things going on in their lives at an early age, she's got a lot more to tackle than the appearance of a bra.

We live in the slut times. "Feminists" are pushing to give girls more agency and control in society by telling them to go out and act like men. Then they complain that young girls are getting dressed up too sexy.

They can pat themselves on the back for creating their own problem.

[Anthony A. King]

This women just doesn't understand slutty is what slutty does.

But seriously, feminists want girls to be sexually liberated and then complain when their seen as sex objects, come on.

Also isn't this what walmart's for to get the plain non-sexy-not to mention cheaper-underwear?

[soup]

Want toake bras not sexy? Make them in that "skin tone " color.

[kosko]

(04-15-2014 02:04 AM)Faust Wrote:  

Quote:

She turned to the crowdfunding site Kickstarter hoping to raise $25,000 to launch Yellowberry, and was stunned by the response. When the 30-day campaign ended on Sunday, it had raised almost $42,000 to finance Yellowberry’s first production order, making it one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever for an underwear or lingerie start-up.

What the hell is going on with our society that there multiple Kickstarter campaigns going on for underwear/lingerie start-ups?

Because women can use emotional campaigns versus sound business campaigns to start firms. I have seen a few female "feminist" kickstarters in Toronro reach their goals but then get bogged down in trying to make a hamster ideas into a money maker. They think on the idea before actually crunching the numbers. Men on kick starter raise 100k + of sound and proper innovative business ideas, versus hamster farts they had one day in the shower.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

(04-15-2014 08:29 AM)soup Wrote:  

What does it mean for a girl to grow up these days?

The way the chick in the article talks about it, it's as if the young girls are inevitably going to grow into some sex in the city slut, and she's worried that it's happening too early.

Bras don't make girls slutty, people make girls slutty. If she's worried about girls having sex things going on in their lives at an early age, she's got a lot more to tackle than the appearance of a bra.

We live in the slut times. "Feminists" are pushing to give girls more agency and control in society by telling them to go out and act like men. Then they complain that young girls are getting dressed up too sexy.

They can pat themselves on the back for creating their own problem.

All true, but let me add that my mother and her sister tell me stories of how when they were teens they'd dress in sexy clothes and sneak out of the house without my grandmother knowing.

So the urge for teenage girls to want to look hot was happening way before the Sex and the City era. Which makes this business plan even more off-the-mark.

[DJ-Matt]

TEAT!

[Emancipator]

WNB, no wonder she wants to "desexualize bras"

[DJ-Matt]

[Suits]

Megan = secretly attracted to pre-teen girls?