‘I’ve got a pair of tits – I’ll figure it out.’
6
ALWAYS DO THE THINGS YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT
Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.
‘Oh, my god, I need to find these implants!’ I shrieked.
‘Michelle, we’re on holiday,’ Michael said.
‘I know but I have to contact this company,’ I said, shoving the magazine under his nose.
We had used a bit of my redundancy money to go on a family holiday to Florida four months after Declan was born. We were staying in a villa with friends Nigel and Andrea and they had brought their baby boy along as well. I was supposed to be recharging my batteries after all the upset with Declan but I couldn’t. I was lost in my thoughts all the time we were there. My idea to design a bra was rushing around in the back of my head. I picked up a magazine I’d seen lying around on a coffee table in the villa and spotted an advert for breast enhancers – or ‘chicken fillets’, if you like – you know, the squidgy implants you stuff inside your bra to make your boobs look bigger.
The idea was now in my head and I couldn’t let it go. I needed to find out who manufactured these enhancers because I knew they were what I was going to invest my time and my money into. These enhancers would be amazing to put inside the bra I wanted to invent. ‘I need to find these chicken fillets!’ I said to Michael.
I made Michael go to the mall with me. The poor guy, I dragged him into shop after shop, asking people, ‘Do you know where you can get these?’ pointing to the magazine. I eventually found a store that stocked the enhancers, but they couldn’t tell me who manufactured them. I bought them anyway. They were great; they felt like real breast tissue. The drawback was that they were expensive, costing £150.
I spent the whole two weeks driving and phoning around stores, trying to track down the manufacturer. I was like a dog with a bone. Honestly, I think I drove my friends mad. But I was hit with a wall of silence. No one would tell me. Which wasn’t surprising, really, as the details of a supplier are the unique selling point. Guarding them is the way stores make their margins. I came home empty-handed but of course that didn’t stop me. I was determined. I spent another two months trying to track the fillets down. I kept phoning stores back in the USA, sometimes the same stores twice. I made up a story to get some answers.
‘I’m setting up a shop in the UK and I really want to buy from the supplier. Please can you help me?’ I pleaded. It was this wee lassie, over the phone in one of these shops in Florida, that finally told me.
‘Yeah, sure, here you are,’ she said and she gave me the name.
Yes. Finally.
I tracked down the guy. He was called Jack Lewis and was based in Miami. It was a family business and they were Jewish. I told him my background with Labatt and how I really wanted to be his distributor in the UK and Europe. ‘Can I come over and see you?’ I pushed.
Jack was laid-back and he just said to me, ‘Yeah sure, why not? When do you want to come?’ Whoosh, that rocket inside me took off again.
‘In a couple of days,’ I told him.
‘This is mental,’ Michael said, as I was booking the flights for the both of us.
‘No, it’s not, it’s going to be huge,’ I said with conviction.
‘We are going to have to pay for the distributorship. They won’t just give it to us,’ he said.
I turned to Michael and said, ‘Yes, they will. I’ll get them to give it to us.’
We left the kids with my parents and we flew back to Florida the next day. I went into the meeting and we chatted for hours. Jack was maybe about ten years older than Michael and we all got on really well. We became close – Michael and I went out for dinners with Jack and his wife, Val. Jack told me he couldn’t give me the exclusive rights to his breast enhancers for the European market.
‘You’ll need to pay for that,’ Jack explained. I needed to haggle. And it came naturally.
‘Look, I don’t have the money but I’m telling you I will sell these like nothing else,’ I blagged.
‘I can’t, Michelle,’ he said.
A few days later, I was about to go to the airport for my return flight and I decided to try one last time. I wasn’t taking ‘No’ for an answer. ‘Please, Jack, don’t make this a wasted trip. All I can say is that I promise you that this will be the best thing that’s ever happened. I will turn this business into something huge in the UK and Europe.’ And then I came down hard. ‘But I’m not doing it unless you give me the distributorship. I’m not wasting my time. I will get them into all the papers and magazines and then people will buy from you as well, so what’s the point in me doing the hard work for you to see the rewards? And I tell you what, I’m going to do them anyway. I’ll just find another manufacturer.’
Jack went very quiet but I could tell I was winning him over. Michael was staring at me like he wasn’t sure if I was his wife. He’d not seen this side to me before. ‘Look, what have you got to lose?’ I smiled. ‘You’re not selling it in Europe at the moment anyway.’ Jack looked me in the eyes. I knew I had him. ‘So give me it and I’ll make it worth your while.’
Michael was staring at me, Jack was staring at me and then Jack drew in a deep breath. ‘Okay, deal,’ he said.
We left for Glasgow with the distributorship and we hadn’t paid a penny for it. The agreement was we would buy them at a certain price with my redundancy money and sell them at a certain price. So Jack would make his margin, I’d make my margin and the stores would make their margin.
I came home feeling incredible. But as with all my victories I didn’t just sit back and enjoy it. For me, it was like, what next? What can we do now? I’m always driving forward. So I hit the ground running. The first thing I did was register my company. Michael suggested it was named after him, his initials – MJM International – in 1996. I then hit the phone.
It was my aim to stock these enhancers in every store. My sales pitch was that I had these revolutionary silicone gel pads that would enhance your boobs by two cup-sizes. I got appointments everywhere – thinking back, I don’t know how I managed to get all those meetings. I came to London with a case containing samples from Jack. The gel pads were very expensive at £150 retail and that meant I had to target high-end lingerie boutiques like Rigby & Peller. I sold the pads everywhere and then I started the PR. I wrote my own press release, sent it to all the newspapers and the publicity just kept coming and coming.
The enhancers were called Monique but they were soon nicknamed ‘chicken fillets’. The local papers wanted to interview me. Who is this woman who has launched these ‘chicken fillets’? And then the Scottish national, the Daily Record, wanted to interview me. Seeing my name in the paper I’d read since I was a kid was a really big deal. They now call me the ‘bra tycoon’ but back then I was a ‘businesswoman’. My mum and dad would ring me up and tell me how their neighbours were talking about me, how Gran had read about my success in her tea leaves. Dad said his friends down the pub had read about how I’d started up my own business. Sadly, I also heard a rumour that people were saying, ‘It won’t last’, but I shrugged it off.
I worked from a desk in my bedroom with Declan’s cot by my side. Michael was still in pensions but he would do the books and the legal stuff for me at the weekends and in the evenings. He wasn’t that interested in the creative side of things but he liked the trips. By then I was earning ‘okay’ money, more than at Labatt, but nothing to set the world on fire. I was always thinking, What’s next?
Keep going. Must keep going.
I thought back to my ‘Eureka!’ moment in the toilets at that rugby dinner and dance. My dream from day one had been not just to sell a Monique-style enhancer but to invent a bra with a Monique built into it. The problem with the current product was that they were solid silicone. I’d been wearing them myself to promote the brand and they were weighing me down. I wanted to design a liquid silicone version that I would incorporate into a b
ra.
I convinced Jack to give me the contact details of the chemist who had designed the Moniques. I was straight-talking – I told Jack that I’d still buy his breast enhancers but that I needed to earn more money, that I needed more products and I had this idea for a new bra. We had become really good friends and I’d earned Jack a lot of money in the space of a year so he was happy to help me out.
I’d gone from finding the store that had sold them to finding the guy that distributed them to finding the guy who had invented them – in a laboratory in Germany. I was now about to find out what it was like to design my own bra.
By now I’d also gone from the desk in my bedroom to my very first office, thanks to a grant I’d won from the Prince’s Trust. I was back in a rough area of Glasgow – Hollybrook Place, near Govanhill – but it was a start, and it was a five-minute drive from our house. The grant of £5,000 got me my first computer and some furniture for the office, a mezzanine over two floors. There were desks at the top and I stored all the boxes at the bottom. It was like a mini-warehouse down there.
After I spoke to the German scientist over the phone, he sent me sacks of silicone liquid gel to look at and over time refined the composition to my specifications. It took about a year to get the gel right and then I had to design the gel into the bra. I cut up old bras and sewed the gel sacks into the fabric but it wasn’t giving me much of a polished look. So what did I do? I applied for the job as the distributor for Elle Lingerie & Nightwear for the UK.
‘You’re nuts, you’re mad,’ Michael said. I guess he was enjoying the calm after the storm in our relationship and didn’t want us to do anything that might rock the boat. But I had to rock it if I wanted to take things to another level. I knew that I needed to find out more about manufacturing to make my invention a success. A job at Elle would open doors because getting distribution rights would mean I could get to know the manufacturers personally. And besides, I needed a job like this to fund my project.
‘No, I’m not mad. We need more turnover, we need to investigate more options,’ I reasoned.
Tons of people went for the Elle job but, bloody hell, I got it. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t mess around. I was quick to ask the bosses if I could visit the factories that were making their underwear. I explained my interest as ‘research’. The bosses said, ‘Okay, you can go and visit them.’
You beauty, I thought. I was in. I was going to find out exactly who was right to make my bra. Michael came along – he liked the trips! We flew out to Portugal and met up with factory owners. I kept asking, asking and asking, because if you don’t ask, you don’t get. I was constantly building relationships. I was networking like hell – networking at events staged for women in business. And all the while I was making incredible business for Elle. I was selling their bras and nightwear everywhere. I got them the best sales they had ever recorded in the UK. Again, I did above and beyond my job description – my role was just to sell rather than do their marketing or their PR but I helped with the photo shoots and the brochures.
I became really friendly with the owners of one particular factory in the north of Portugal. It wasn’t one of the largest factories, but it was big enough with lots of sewing machines and cutting rooms and all the rest of it. I turned up with my silicone gels and showed them what I wanted. My fingers came alive as I sketched the bra. It was the same magical feeling I’d had when I’d designed my wedding dress nearly five years earlier. I told them the shape I wanted. I picked out the microfibre fabric I wanted. It was good having Michael with me because I didn’t understand the money side of things and that was where he came in.
I was working all the hours God sent, but I was still taking Declan with me into the office. Mum would sometimes take him away for a few hours to give me a bit of respite. I’d then pick Rebecca up from nursery. I was basically multi-tasking to get whatever I needed done so I could also be a good mum and wife. It was really difficult but what kept me going were my dreams. I believed if you think big, then big things will happen. I kept dreaming about being the most successful businesswoman in the country. I kept dreaming about having a multi-million-pound company. I kept dreaming and dreaming. Every night, I would lie awake, notepad beside the bed. I’d wake up and make more notes.
‘Go to sleep,’ Michael would say. But I couldn’t, my mind was buzzing.
I wouldn’t have achieved any of the work if it wasn’t for my mum and dad. They looked after the kids all the time. They did everything. My dad packed the chicken fillets from his wheelchair, working really hard. He came in every single day. I’ll never forget when we got our first fax machine. Dad was staring at it like it was from outer space.
‘Dad, that’s a fax that’s coming in,’ I explained.
He looked gobsmacked. ‘Where’s the hole in the wall?’ he asked.
I burst out laughing. ‘What are you talking about, Dad?’
‘How’s someone sent that fax through? Where’s the hole for it to come through?’ He thought someone had delivered it through the brickwork like a letter through a letterbox. I tried to explain, but he shook his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t get it, I don’t get any of this,’ he said, throwing his hands in the air. I couldn’t stop laughing.
It was a really happy time having my family all together, all around me. And I think Dad was happy because he was working again. Dad was popping pills every day to keep him alive but he never let the strain show. I was making money from Elle, I was making money from the chicken fillets and what did I do?
‘Michael, we need to buy this house,’ I pushed. I’d spotted a beautiful, five-bedroom house with a mock castle parapet in an even posher area than the one in which we lived – Newton Mearns. It would be our first stand-alone house. It would be our castle!
‘We are not doing it, no way,’ said Michael.
I stood with my hands on my hips. I wasn’t budging. ‘No, we have to do it. We will stretch and we will manage. Let’s just do it.’ I guess a lot of people would have been terrified to make that move when they were unsure of what the future had in store, but I’ve always been a massive risk-taker, I’ve got balls of steel. Michael is a very safe person. He’s clever with numbers in an analytical kind of way. I’m the creative one – the entrepreneur. But Michael didn’t come up with the idea of chicken fillets and he didn’t wander around the stores trying to find breast enhancers. There would have been something wrong with him if he’d come up with that idea! He didn’t design a bra or work with Elle Lingerie, but he was highly intelligent: he understood the legal stuff, the accounts – all the areas I wasn’t good at or interested in.
I not only pushed for the house but I also bought a brand new Audi that I leased through the business. I also hired a nanny to help take the pressure off my mum and dad. Then I stood back for a moment and thought, Wow, Jesus… We are living in this beautiful house, I’ve got my own office, I’ve got a new car, I’ve got two wonderful kids, things are good with Michael… I’m on my way to the top.
I was close to getting my final prototype back from the factory in Portugal when I found out I was pregnant again, in December 1998. It wasn’t planned, but it was a nice accident, shall we say. Because I was an only child I’ve always wanted a big family. I’d grown up watching my friends muck about with their brothers and sisters and I wanted what they had. Some people like being on their own and they love ‘me’ time but I hate my own company. Michael was happy with the news because he was very much a family guy.
I’d barely had time to celebrate when another box of samples arrived from Portugal. I remember it being a horribly cold January day. I whacked up the heating in my house and tried the bra on. ‘Bloody hell! This is incredible,’ I squealed.
The bra was plain white and quite ugly compared to what we design now, but I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. It was so comfortable. It gave a natural cleavage rather than looking like you’d just stuffed your bra with toilet paper. It was so smooth, so natural. When you bounced up
and down, it bounced with you. It looked like real breast tissue. I knew this was it. I jumped up and down and phoned everyone to come around and try it.
‘I’ve only just gone and done it!’ I said to my mum. I was over the moon. I had different sizes in the box and I gathered all my family and friends into my bedroom to get stuck in. I remember my aunty trying it on and my mum trying it on. My best friend Ilene gave it a go. They all said, ‘Wow’. Good thing Michael was at work as our house was full of semi-naked women jumping up and down!
I watched the smiles on their faces and I broke down in tears. I had put three years of hard work into making this day happen. Michael had been telling me to get on with my sales career but I knew that it would be worth it in the end. The breast enhancers hadn’t been mine. Elle Lingerie hadn’t been mine. In order for me to break through and make a big name for myself, I had to invent something of my own.
7
THE BIGGEST BRA LAUNCH IN HISTORY
If you really want something, work really hard, take advantage of opportunities, have a can-do attitude and never give up – you will find a way.
I was panicking.
We were £480,000 in debt. Our house was acting as security to the bank. I’d given up my distributorship at Elle so I could focus on my dream. Everything was riding on this bra I had invented being a success. I needed to place an order or we were going to be homeless. The question was this: should I take the prototypes around all the independent boutiques? Throughout my life I’ve always looked at the bigger picture. So I thought big. What’s the most famous department store in London? Which is both prestigious and trendy? Where would be the best place in the UK to launch my bra?
Selfridges.
I’ll never forget that day I turned up at the buying office just off Oxford Street in London. I was pregnant with Bethany and I begged to see the lingerie buyer. I told the receptionist I had the best bra ever. She said, ‘Do you have an appointment?’
My Fight to the Top Page 5