You are one of the creators of DiaryDoll, how did you come up with the idea?
It all came about when by business partner Annabel and I were on holiday in Portugal, discussing our daughter’s concerns about having ‘accidents’ at school, sleepovers or during sport (we have 4 teenage daughters between us, one of whom is the model on our website!).
Annabel has always suffered with heavy periods, and as a young player, touring the international tennis circuit, her mum gave her plastic pants, which were hideous and scratchy, but did the trick. Why, we wondered, has there never been anything on the market, when normal sanitary protection is not enough?
DiaryDoll is a social enterprise, not a commercial company. Why you chose that form for your project?
Actually, we’re not a social enterprise, but our UK manufacturer is. They were once known as Remploy, and employ only disabled workers. It became rebranded as Haven PTS, and they have made DiaryDolls for us for over a year, carrying us through a particularly tricky time, when we couldn’t afford the vast order quantities the overseas factories demanded.
We will always be so grateful to them for that, and while they continue to make for our independent lingerie boutiques, they couldn’t scale up, for our High St multiple retailers, so we now split production between them and the Far East.
DiaryDolls are becoming very popular. Could you explain what makes them so special?
I think the idea is so simple, it’s incredible it hasn’t been done before, a cute pair of pants, with a secret waterproof panel, that is so lightweight, they look and feel like your favourite briefs, it’s a winner!
As women, during our cycle or even after sport, when our pelvic floor muscles haven’t been strong enough, we all know when we have leaked and gone through our underwear, but when we get up from that chair, we don’t want anyone else to know. That’s when DiaryDolls come in. We are back up, and give you time to get to the loo and change. We’ve got your back covered.
Could you tell us about the biggest challenges you faced while promoting pink pants?
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We are all so familiar with the Breast Cancer campaign where women are encouraged to wear their bras over their t-shirts and walk or run to raise money and awareness for Breast Cancer Care, they’ve done an incredible job building a campaign that is now so instantly understood and recognised. Pink Pants run along the same lines, and your fundraisers do such a brilliant job, I can honestly say they’ve signed up and got on board without hesitation, so we’ve had no real challenges on that front. We still laugh at the photo of your ex-chairman Trevor Dahl with DiaryDolls over the top of his trousers!
Any unexpected difficulties?
We assumed that publicity would be easy for us, given that both Annabel and I are well known faces, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. I suppose we both underestimated how taboo the whole topic of women’s plumbing still is! Newspapers are still edited by middle aged men, who slightly freak at the mention of the anything to do with leaking of any kind. It’s just not sexy, and they’d rather avoid it altogether.
You chose Endometriosis UK as your sole charity to work in partnership with. What would you like to achieve through this partnership?
We have a huge common customer base, and we’d like to be able to reach out to those women for whom endometriosis means worrying about not being able to lead a normal life for fear of leaking. We have a wonderful lady called Michelle Middleton, who runs an Endometriosis UK Leeds and Bradford Support Group, that writes a blog for us. She has a real talent for writing, and is able to really tell it like it is, warts and all, with a heartfelt warmth and empathy that draws the reader in. You’ll be moved to tears and laughing out loud all at the same time.
Endometriosis is not a well-known condition. Had you heard about it before you got involved in DiaryDolls?
I had heard of it, but know very little about it. Annabel had even suffered from it, before having her children and I never even knew, until a woman called Kate Scott posted a message on our Facebook wall, saying DiaryDolls had literally changed her life. For the first time, she was able to hold down a job, without fear of ‘accidents’ at work in front of her colleagues. It stopped me dead in my tracks, and opened up a whole discussion. Endometriosis UK seems like the perfect fit as a charity partner. Our first introduction to John Lewis also came about thanks to another Endo Sister, Kate Hardcastle, who immediately saw the potential in our brand, and literally made it her mission to get us in there. She also introduced us to JD Williams, and they went on to list us in all 7 of their catalogues!
Learn more about DiaryDoll here.
