![]() “In fact most of the Pour Moi staff have been here for years, with everyone doing a little bit of everything - it means we all know the business inside and out. “When we started out it was just me and Julie, who’s now my head of design,” he says. When you’re in a big company you don’t realise how little you know, from how to get something booked into a warehouse or how to package it into a box. While all that industry knowledge put Michael in good stead, it still wasn’t easy to go it alone. Although when we launched Pour Moi at a major lingerie exhibition in 2005, the buyer from Next turned up and I had to hide in my booth.” “I was working at Next while setting up the Pour Moi brand on the side. Michael worked at M&S for ten years before moving to LF Intimates in 2003 (a brand he would later buy in 2019), then joined Next eleven months later. And that’s how it all began.” A bit of moonlighting. “They moved me into the lingerie department and I loved it. “I’m actually a trained accountant, but when I was at university I decided that it wasn’t really me, so I applied for a merchandising job at Marks & Spencer,” he explains. ![]() Like, why should the bra have to change in design just because it’s gone up in cup sizes?”īut Michael was more than just a fashion outsider challenging the status quo. “It’s helped me challenge preconceptions in lingerie and swimwear. “Because I don’t wear bras myself (well, not that often), I’ve always been able to think more clearly about what women want, rather than just creating something that I’d like to wear,” says Michael. It should be the same bra for everyone,” states Michael. “We believe that the same bra should look just as good in a G cup as it does as a 34B. But while it’s bigger and better than ever, the brand’s core philosophy has always remained the same. Now nearly 15 years later, Pour Moi has outgrown its premises, added swimwear and nightwear to its collections, bought major lingerie brands and moved to Brighton to a sunny office by the sea. “But at least I can say that George Michael funded Pour Moi.” It was hard parting with them as some of those names I’d got personally,” laughs founder Michael Thomson. “I started Pour Moi using the money I’d made from selling my autograph collection. Pour Moi started in a tiny office above a shop in Macclesfield, packed with materials, cardboard boxes, two staff members and one belief - that people shouldn’t have to overpay for good-fitting lingerie, no matter what their size.
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