LIFE IN JAPAN
Corrie MacDonald
 Occupation:
Lingerie product manager/bra
manufacturer
Time in Japan:
5 years
"People are always interested when I
tell them what I do - especially men - but underwear is just a product to me.
I am responsible for a range sold in retail
stores - the speciality, often smaller, shops. Although I am not the actual designer, the
ranges, which we introduce twice a year, are made from my ideas.
When I am thinking of designs I keep in
mind my target customer: a 23 year old Office Lady.
The Japanese market is completely different
from elsewhere. It' well known that Japanese women are into padded underwear. One item we
recently introduced is the Bust Mate. It's an inflatable pad that sits in the bottom of
the cup. The wearer can deflate it for work during the day, then inflate it to go out in
the evening!
Customers here also really love decorative
lingerie and are big fans of lace and embroidery. They will buy all kinds of colors,
whereas in Europe women tend to stick to black, white and beige.
But tastes are changing. Asian women are
beginning to favor these colors and opt for bras with smoother lines. Our latest concept
is the T-shirt bra which, although padded, is designed to be as smooth as possible, so as
not to show through clothes.
My work is a mixture of the creative side
&endash; designing, choosing the colors and ensuring the range is coordinated- and a
general kind of maintenance of the product.
At the moment we are designing for winter
'97. So in the morning I might be meeting with designers to chat through ideas. Then after
lunch I could be poring over sales figures and consulting market data.
We have numerous meetings with the sales
team to let them know what we aim to do. Sometimes they will alert us to the fact that
something is unlikely to sell. For example, certain colors &endash; particularly green
&endash; are not popular here.
About six months ago, a journalist wrote an
article claiming wearing red underwear was good for your heath and general well-being. We
debated whether to rush out lots of red underwear.
Twice a year we visit trade shows
throughout Europe where we absorb ideas for our designs. Underwear is very much influenced
by outerwear trends and it's all about creating that right body shape. With the current
trend towards tight tops and figure hugging clothes you have to put more careful thought
into your underwear.
We also design promotional bras which our
Campaign Girl wears to specific events. We have had an Olympic bra complete with sporting
figures and a Sumo bra to celebrate the wedding of a popular wrestler. The One Cup Sake
bra had a plastic pouch filled with sake. The idea was that the wearer's body temperature
warms the sake for it and then it's poured out from an appropriately positioned stopper. I
don't know what that idea was commemorating. Only in Japan."
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LIFE IN JAPAN: