Bridal Style Tips, Featured

Q&A with Heist: Never underestimate the power of good underwear

As a bride you want to feel and look the best possible version of yourself for your big day and underwear is a key part in achieving this look. You’ll want your dress to fit like a glove, with no uncomforable snags and certainly no VPL.

Never underestimate the power of good underwear. After doing tonnes of research for our brides we discovered Heist and we are so glad we did.

Heist is the cult underwear brand that you need to know about if you don’t already.

A few weeks ago we caught up with the team behind Heist to tell you a little bit more about their innovative brand.

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How did Heist start? 

In 2015 London-based start up, Heist, set out on a mission to disrupt the global underwear market: a stagnant $110B industry that leaves women across the globe uncomfortable and objectified.

It was at this point that an uncomfortable truth and stark reality was uncovered…

All women are unique. And yet, their experience of underwear is universal: disappointing.

Whether it’s constantly hoisting up tights, cutting off shapewear or changing out of a bra at the first available opportunity… Women are being failed by the very garments supposed to support them.

So, the Heist mission was born, to liberate women from disappointing underwear*. By innovating against ignorance and creating against constriction, we believe underwear can be an instrument for progress.

*the garments we trust closest to our skin and rely on for support all day, every day.

Through an innovative combination of technology from sports and space never before used in the category, and our scientific knowledge of the female form, we create underwear world-firsts that will change every woman’s experience for good.

Heist has raised over $10M from some of the world’s leading investors to build Lab12, an in-house innovation laboratory. This team applies the same level of physiological research and technological innovation to underwear that has previously been applied to the sportswear category. 

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Why is your shapewear so revolutionary? 

We asked 1,025 women what they wanted to change about shapewear, because we knew it was lacking when it came to performance. Lab12, our in-house innovation team, then took on the category by applying leading technology from sports and space to create shapewear with revolutionary HeroPanels™ that shape, smooth and slim – whilst keeping the wearer completely comfortable.

We studied the human anatomy and its natural support system, the fascia, and designed HeroPanels™ that mimic it. This gives you a second supportive layer which applies clever compression where you want it. Unlike traditional shapewear (essentially an elastic band that puts pressure on your crotch and spine) ours is comfortable, breathable (HeroPanels™ are enhanced with 20,000 laser perforations that let your body breathe) and beautifully designed.

 

What is your most popular shapewear and why? 

The Shape Collection includes The Outer Body, The High Waist (pant) and The Highlight Short all of which have expertly positioned HeroPanels™ that give strong, even compression where you want it; smoothing, slimming and supporting for a streamlined silhouette. 

In terms of popularity, The Outer Body has established itself as a wardrobe essential for women. Its breathable second-skin fabric and stylish design mean that this shaping bodysuit as part of an outfit and we find that a huge number of customers wear it as outerwear. 

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Can you tell us more about the Nude Project? 

We worked with women across the globe to define a range of nude shades that represent everyone, and in July 2019 we open sourced that research. 

Using insights from 100,000 women and data science to analyse swatches of skin tones from a dedicated microsite,  we were able to answer one of fashion’s most overlooked questions; what is nude?

Having recognised that without a data driven cross-section of populations broken down by skin tones, the fashion industry was incapable of providing accurate shades of nudes that match their customers’ skin tones.

The Nude Project was launched to collect this data which allowed Heist to analyse the skin tones of participants over the course of two years. This data identified 1,000 unique skin tones, which then allowed Heist to perform Euclidean clustering. This data clustering process resulted in seven distinct shades of nude which any of the 100,000 women who participated in the project could accurately match to.


The seven shades of nude devised from Heist’s research then informed one of its best-selling product ranges;  seven shades of nude tights.

Following the success of this crowd-sourcing initiative and the importance of accurate representation of audience in the industry, which has been non-existent to date, Heist then open sourced the data. 

Now global brands, designers and entrepreneurs operating across sectors have access to the exact skin tones needed to accurately represent their audience which marks a pivotal moment in the industry. 

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Read more information on The Nude Project at www.heist-studios.com/the-nude-project

 

Can you tell us more about Planet Heist? 

We launched Planet Heist,  our sustainability and ethics initiative, in August 2019 to communicate the commitments we have made to achieving a series of goals by 2022.  To date, we have focused our efforts on the areas that will have the biggest immediate positive impact. 

For example, by 2022, we are committed to:

 

  • Reducing our Greenhouse Gas Emissions by eliminating the use of virgin fossil fuels in our products and packaging and replacing them with recycled, biosynthetic and biodegradable materials.

 

  • Reducing the number of our products going to landfill by providing our customers with a free, global recycling programme.

 

  • Reducing energy consumption across all of our activities (including manufacturing, shipping, offices and travel) and switching all direct usage to renewable energy.


You can read more about our future initiative at: www.heist-studios.com/sustainability-and-ethics

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I don’t know about you but we are so happy with discovered this incredible brand who are doing incredible things with their platform.

We are so proud to be partnered with them to help our brides find the right underwear for their big day. 

You can discover more here: https://www.heist-studios.com. You can use our exclusive code: MEWSBRIDAL10  for £10 off shapewear – Valid until end of year.