There’s no ignoring that today is Black Friday and a lot of customers will have been keeping an eye on their favourite brand to see if they will be running a sale worthy of indulging in a little retail therapy for. For most brands in retail, to not take part in Black Friday would be considered retail suicide. But for Pip & Pantalaimon, we think it would be commercially unsustainable to take part. While being a brand in one breath, we’re/I’m also an independent designer. EVERYTHING is done in house in our Market Harborough studio; this includes all of the production. We very often make garments to order, usually when an order comes in we might have about half of it in stock and we make the rest to order. We do this for lots of reasons; mainly it’s so much easier than working with a factory on the other side of the world, where you can’t keep a close eye on working conditions and well as quality etc. Making in house means we don’t have to meet factory minimum order quantity and essentially over order to be able to work with a particular factory. For me, this is a pretty unethical way to operate and it’s certainly not a model for sustainable fashion. I’m proud that we operate in a more responsible way where we don’t over produce any garments, which means we don’t have a big warehouse of last season’s stock to clear out before the next one lands in the New Year.
When you order from us, you are buying a piece of lingerie that has genuinely been designed and made in our studio in Market Harborough (a town which has a very rich history in corset making, by the way) by a person who trained in this skill 20 miles up the road on De Montfort University’s world famous Contour Fashion degree. Materials and components are bought from within the UK when at all possible and within Europe when not possible. With all this in mind, we’re confident that our prices are fair for us and fair for you, and they don’t fluctuate with the holidays.
Basically, we never run sales. That might not be music to some customers’ ears, but when you shop with Pip & Pantalaimon you can shop in confidence that the same item won’t be on sale for half the price after the holidays. We love and respect all of our customers too much to do that.
Finally, if you’re got this far you must be a mega fan; thank you all so much for all of your love, support, encouragement, orders, feedback, recommendations throughout this year. It’s so deeply appreciated and it’s because of all this love that I know we’ll still be making fabulous lingerie for you lovely lot for years to come
Philippa xx