Figleaves.com is a UK-based online lingerie retailer established by Daniel Nabarro and former McKinsey & Co manager Michael Ross in 1998 and purchased by

N Brown Group N Brown Group plc () is an online retailer headquartered in Manchester, England. N Brown offers a range of products, predominantly clothing, footwear and homewares with a focus on underserved customer groups. The company is listed on the London St ...

in 2010.

Company history

Figleaves was founded in 1998 by entrepreneur Daniel Nabarro and former

McKinsey & Co McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

manager Michael Ross. At launch, it was the first internet retailer to specialise in lingerie, and one of the first to target a female-only market. In 2002 the company started selling in the US. In 2005 the

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...

group

Balderton Capital Balderton Capital is a venture capital firm based in London, UK, that invests in early-stage, technology and internet startup companies in Europe. It is considered to be among the four-biggest venture capital firms in the English capital. Foun ...

bought an almost 40% stake, and in 2010 the company was purchased by

in 2010 for £11.5 million.Mills, Lauren (24 February 2008)
How to pull a company up by its bra straps

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

.McGregor, Kirsty (16 February 2018)
How digital pioneer Figleaves is reconnecting with customers

Drapers Draper was originally a term for a retailer or wholesaler of cloth that was mainly for clothing. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. History Drapers were an important trade guild during the medieval period, ...

. The company did not turn a profit in the UK until 2012, 14 years after it launched and two years after it was acquired by N Brown Group. In Feb 2021 Figleaves.com announced the website would close and be absorbed into SimplyBe.co.uk.

Management

Julia Reynolds, a former Tesco executive who had previously started Tesco's clothing brand F&F, was the chief executive from 2008 until 2011 when she left to join

Blacks Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in ...

. Initially, she was not replaced, but her responsibilities were divided between the commercial director, operations director, and product and brand director. Since 2016 the company CEO has been Miriam Lahage, who had previously built and led a number of multi-channel businesses in the US and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Operations

Lingerie makes up 50% of sales, swimwear 40% and nightwear 10%. Figleaves also sells its own-brand clothing through JD Williams, part of the N Brown Group, as well as on Amazon and eBay. Figleaves' head office is in Stevenage,

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. They also have a warehouse and customer service centre in

Haverhill, Suffolk Haverhill ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England, next to the borders of Essex and Cambridgeshire. It lies about south east of Cambridge, south west of Bury St Edmunds, and north west of Braintree and Colche ...

.Case Studies: Figleaves
Focus on Haverhill.

References

External links

FigLeaves.com
Clothing retailers of the United Kingdom Online retailers of the United Kingdom Companies based in Welwyn Hatfield British companies established in 1998 Clothing companies established in 1998 Retail companies established in 1998 Internet properties established in 1998 1998 establishments in the United Kingdom Lingerie retailers {{UK-retail-company-stub