st finished a textile degree and was doing retail on the side. I loved fashion but wasn’t envisioning starting a brand. Carly had studied business and marketing, and we basically crashed our parents’ holiday in Europe. They’re best friends, and we were swimming in their pool. I’m a DD, and I was squeezing in [to my swimsuit]. Carly was a 10E, so she couldn’t fit into [standard size] brands. We were just like, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a brand that fit a larger cup size?’  We started meeting up and sharing our favourite brands – the things we loved about them and the things we would change. We worked with a pattern maker, and she helped us engineer styles based on the bras that we loved. We spent three years figuring out the brand. It was a long process, and I know now why people don’t do it – it’s really hard.  IR: The official launch was in 2017. How did you build brand awareness? SK: At the time, there wasn’t a huge focus on social media or digital ads. For us, it was all about getting our story out there through the press. We couldn’t afford a PR agency, so I had a friend help me write a press release and I Googled the email of every single editor I could find. [The Australian publication] Broadsheet ended up writing an article a month before we launched. We had a very basic landing page, and 10,000 people signed up, so we had this incredible database.  We had no idea that it was going to take off that quickly; we didn’t necessarily have systems in place. We were picking and packing our orders all day into the night. Carly’s parents were the backup customer service. It was a crazy time.  We didn’t mean to be relevant. It was a product we designed not because we thought it was a great business choice – because really, if I were to do a product now, I wouldn’t have all these SKUs and sizes, and I wouldn’t have such a beautifully made expensive product – but it just worked.  It was also the right time [for brands offering extended sizes]. There were all these plus-size influencers – not models, they called themselves ‘muses’ – on Instagram with like 10,000 followers. Some of them have millions of followers now.  IR: What have been some of the major turning points in the brand’s growth journey since launching? SK: We’ve been around for six years now, and we’ve had very consistent and slow growth. We haven’t been [worn by a] huge celebrity or had a massive amount of funding. We’ve just created this product that people keep coming back to.  Every year, we learn more about our customers, or more about social media, or how to better manage our email [marketing]. I wouldn’t say there’s been one specific moment. We just think about how can we improve, how we can reduce costs, and what’s happening in the world.  IR: It seems like there weren’t many other brands offering stylish swimwear for bigger cup sizes when you launched Form & Fold, but there’s clearly a lot of demand for this type of product, so why do you think that gap exists? SK: The number one reason is that it’s technically really hard. It took us three years to develop, and there aren’t that many people left in Australia who do it. You can’t just do a pattern-making course. You need to have experience in lingerie construction techniques and designing for a curve, which is completely different from designing for a flat chest. I think this is why we are so successful; we had access to someone who had retired and she was happy to work with us on the side, and we still work with her to this day.  Because it’s so technical, there are many different components and you can’t just swap them out for poor-quality components or poor-quality fabric because the quality [of the materials] provides the support. But it’s also really expensive. You’ve got fabric, stabiliser fabric, lining, underwire, wire casing, sliders for the adjustable straps, elastic…it’s so many components, so the cost is way higher.  Another thing is SKUs. That’s a big one. We really want to extend our size range, but it’s such an undertaking, and you’re left with so much dead stock because it’s really hard to forecast. Instead of small, medium, and large, or 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, you’ve got up to 26 different sizes. We start at an eight and go up to an 18 for the band size, and we do an A to J cup. Another thing is getting a factory that will do that many sizes. It’s an annoying product for a factory to make. IR: In addition to selling online, you’re also stocked by Net-A-Porter, Matches Fashion, Brown and Harrods. These are big names in luxury fashion; how did you get on their radar?  SK: We just started reaching out to wholesalers, the same way we cold-emailed editors. No one wrote back for a long time, and then, as we built more of a name for ourselves, people would start to reply. We’d send them samples, we’d get on a call and walk them through our lookbook, and then maybe the next collection, they would be a bit warmer.  We were talking to Net-A-Porter for years before they actually bought. It was just about keeping in touch with them, letting them know when Vogue wrote about us. They don’t want to take on young new brands unless they have a name in the industry. IR: What impact have these partnerships had on the business? SK: The awareness and marketing are unbelievable. They’re also servicing customers in other markets. It’s really hard for people in the UK to shop outside of the UK; the duties and taxes going into the UK are crazy expensive. We try to get UK customers to purchase from Net-A-Porter because they’ll cover duties and taxes and they have faster shipping times. Now, with Harrods, if you’re in London, you can go in and try it on. We just launched with them a month ago. It’s a much better experience for people to have a place in their country to purchase from. That’s probably the biggest plus. IR: What does your presence in the US market look like? SK: It’s our second-biggest market after Australia. It’s Australia, the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand. How do you break through to the US? It’s just about trying everything. Having an amazing PR agent who can get your story out there and get you into these round-ups. Facebook ads is a big one.  IR: What’s next for Form & Fold? Are you focusing on increasing your number of stockists, expanding into new categories, or something else? SK: Extending our size ranges is a big one that we hope to get going in the next while, and then just continuing to bring in new products that are solutions-focused for larger cup sizes. Bras is something that we always have in the back of our minds. We’re waiting for the right opportunity when we have the time and funding [to do it], but so many customers ask us to make bras. That’s definitely the vision. IR: What’s the challenge when it comes to the funding side of things? SK: It’s just the challenge of doubling our business. The biggest piece of advice we’ve had throughout the entire time we’ve been in business is to grow slowly so that you’re not sinking the business and you’re not out of control. Every year, we do a new style and we extend the size range a little bit. Everything we do takes a long time because it’s hard to get the fit right, and we won’t release anything unless it’s not only comfortable but also flattering.  IR: Would you ever be open to taking on outside funding? SK: The business is all self-funded and bootstrapped, but definitely in the future, if we’re looking to expand into different product categories, we’d be looking to get funding.