“I really like a superb problem,” Love, Lexxi founder Meg Smith tells Entrepreneur. “I’ve all the time been that means. So if there’s one thing that feels so out of attain, it makes me much more decided to discover a technique to get it carried out.”
Smith’s Zoom background gives a glimpse into one the largest challenges she’s tackled to this point. Behind her, a trio of lacy bras hangs beneath a floral bouquet; on her left, a big stitching machine sits on a shelf. It’s a triumphant tableau that captures the spirit of her founder’s journey — one which inadvertently started again in 2016.
That was the yr Smith determined to get breast implants.
Rising up, like many ladies and younger ladies of her era, Smith was bombarded with pictures of the “good” lady: on tv, in magazines. As they’d because the daybreak of promoting, manufacturers have been shamelessly zeroing in on ladies’s insecurities within the identify of revenue. After all, they nonetheless do, although usually with subtler ways for the sake of PR.
Smith got here of age in an period when giant breasts have been thought of the epitome of femininity.
“I used to be a small-breasted athlete, so I by no means felt tremendous female in my pores and skin,” Smith says. “Society put numerous strain on the conditions to be lovely, horny, female. In order that took a toll. It was an inside wrestle. Quick ahead to having two infants; my physique remodeled much more — [my breasts] principally deflated to nothing.”
Smith believed breast implants have been the way in which to unravel her body-image struggles, and the numerous medical doctors she consulted with previous to the process agreed. However issues took an sudden and terrifying flip after the surgical procedure. About three months post-op, Smith started to expertise a bunch of debilitating signs: imaginative and prescient points, slurred speech, mind fog, and, over the course of 4 years, Graves Illness, thyroid points and locked joints. Docs couldn’t work out what was improper.
Finally, Smith would find out about breast implant sickness, a problem that was little-known or understood again then, and it clicked — her new physique was the reason for her struggling. “I actually felt like I used to be dying,” Smith says. “That’s once I realized what was most necessary in my life — I used to be my two daughters — dwelling and loving.”
So, within the fall of 2020, Smith had the implants eliminated, and she or he started her seek for a bra that will make her really feel comfy and lovely. However the course of wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped. She encountered the identical problem throughout numerous manufacturers: If a bra was comfy, it wasn’t fairly or inspiring a lot physique confidence.
Then, in the course of the night time, Smith awoke with an epiphany: She was going to create what was lacking — a beautiful bra for sizes AA-C that felt as wonderful because it appeared.
“Each little bit of latest data saved fueling me”
Smith was ranging from sq. one. Though she’d owned a advertising and branding company for six years, she had zero expertise constructing a trend model from the bottom up. Fortunately, that advertising experience and love for a superb problem have been all she wanted to get began.
“My advertising background clearly performed a job as a result of I used to be in a position to dive into intensive market analysis,” Smith says. “I performed focus teams. I am part of numerous non-public communities of over 500,000 ladies, who’re basically the goal demographic for what I’ve created. And it was simply validation after validation.”
Smith was additionally on a mission to study as a lot as she might concerning the enterprise. “I simply spent countless hours studying,” she says, “self-teaching — whether or not it was by way of podcasts, books, webinars. I simply couldn’t presumably eat sufficient, and even nonetheless right this moment, I believe that is an necessary component. It gave me the boldness to proceed to maintain going, as a result of each day, each little bit of latest data saved fueling me. Data is energy.”
However Smith was breaking right into a notoriously robust trade. Not solely did she must discover a manufacturing unit keen to work together with her and world-class technical designers, however she additionally needed to discover ways to pitch herself. Happily, she started to make these crucial connections, and her enterprise continued to achieve momentum. “When you get into that bubble, [the network] simply sort of passes the torch alongside,” Smith says. “The trail was sort of paved; everybody’s been believing in what we’re constructing.”
The overwhelming assist has helped Love, Lexxi discover success, however the product-development journey nonetheless threw Smith a number of curveballs alongside the way in which. “Working by way of prototypes and getting these on match fashions to actually, actually engineer one thing that is fixing an issue was extremely difficult,” Smith says. Smith figured it could take two or three prototypes to get the product proper, nevertheless it truly took 5 or 6.
However, two years later, the design is precisely the place Smith had envisioned it could be on that night time in 2020.
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Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Love, Lexxi
“Quite a lot of companies thrive off of us having insecurities”
When Smith underwent breast-implant surgical procedure in 2016, social media was going as sturdy because it ever had, with Fb, Instagram, Snapchat and extra on the scene. Not solely did the platforms maintain the pure human inclination to check oneself to a different, however additionally they more and more started to function main arenas for some manufacturers to faucet into these insecurities and pump up gross sales.
“If we have been all assured with ourselves and all of us felt good in our pores and skin, numerous companies would not exist right this moment,” Smith says. “They thrive off of us having these insecurities — that is how they earn cash. They’re honing in on these insecurities and intensifying them to make you are feeling like they’ll resolve them or make you are feeling higher.”
A few years later, video-centric platform TikTok would additionally grow to be accessible worldwide, finally skyrocketing in reputation throughout pandemic-induced lockdowns — and bringing with it a bunch of latest promoting alternatives, particularly within the type of influencers. Naturally, a few of that very same comparative toxicity stays, and has continued to evolve.
“There are nonetheless so many points with social media,” Smith says, citing filters that permit customers to change their picture in images and movies. However the hot button is discovering the social media accounts that serve you, Smith says. Primarily, observe people who show you how to be ok with your self and unfollow people who don’t. “It sounds quite simple,” she admits, “nevertheless it’s, fairly frankly, about being very aware of what you’re exposing your self to on social.”
Smith has additionally seen some optimistic modifications taking root throughout the panorama of social media advertising. “I believe we have come a great distance,” she says. “So social media is nice within the sense that there are numerous unimaginable optimistic influencers on the market which can be talking to physique confidence, all sizes are lovely. And I believe there’s such a chance there. And with out these platforms to amplify that, it could be more durable to have entry to these sorts of optimistic messages.”
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However Smith is hyper-aware of the truth that, for some corporations, touting physique positivity is simply one other hole advertising ploy. “Particularly right this moment, there’s simply numerous advertising and numerous promoting that is taking numerous these buzzwords — whether or not it is ’empowerment’ or ‘physique confidence’ — and attempting to stay them into their messaging, simply to be related,” she says.
For Smith, making a model that basically embodies these values is paramount. “With Love, Lexxi, it’s so actually ingrained within the core of all the things that we do,” Smith says. “Sure, we have been in a position to engineer and design and assemble bras which can be truly fixing an issue and are lovely and cozy, in order that’s one factor — however the root of what we’re doing is inspiring physique confidence. I need to impression the lives of girls past our assortment.”
To that finish, Love, Lexxi is making its group a precedence — the corporate considers it an arm of the staff and believes that ought to include voting rights that assist the model make choices because it expands its assortment. Moreover, Love, Lexxi has partnered with body-positive public audio system and influencers who proceed to advertise physique confidence through digital occasions. Smith is aware of from expertise simply how necessary constant body-positive messaging is — and desires to close down among the false assumptions about what it means to be assured in a single’s pores and skin.
“[Body confidence] is a type of issues that’s very aspirational — individuals assume you could simply get it and hold it and have it,” Smith explains. “But it surely’s one thing that is ongoing work. It is one thing I examine to a relationship: You do not essentially really feel the butterflies each day.”
Love, Lexxi’s model identify and image, a collection of intertwined hearts, function further reminders of the firm’s values. “Butterflies symbolize confidence, magnificence and love,” Smith says. “And the biggest, arguably most lovely, butterfly on the planet is the Queen Alexandra.” Taking the nickname “Lexxi” from that royal title, the corporate indicators off with “Love” as a result of its undergarments are supposed to be simply that — love letters to ladies’s our bodies.
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Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Love, Lexxi
“I’m left with nothing however scars, however I really like my physique”
As Smith seems to be to Love, Lexxi’s future, she hopes the model continues to be one which prospects can belief and depend on to supply consolation and confidence to the AA-C group. “I really need there to be model consciousness,” she says. “And I really need ladies to say Love, Lexxi has modified my life. Love, Lexxi makes me really feel good, not simply once I’m carrying it, however on an on a regular basis foundation. To have that sort of suggestions for me is success — to know that I am impacting the lives of girls. That, to me, is all that basically issues.”
Proper now, the Love, Lexxi group extends past the U.S. into Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and Smith hopes to proceed increasing the model’s worldwide presence to assist ladies everywhere in the world entry the sort of intimate attire that makes them really feel comfy and assured.
It may be tough for a startup to drag off world enlargement, Smith readily admits, however she’s crammed with optimism — and credit Spanx founder Sara Blakely, partially, for displaying ladies entrepreneurs what’s attainable once they’re not afraid to take a threat. “She’s given us hope,” Smith says. “I bear in mind tales of her together with her purple backpack — she’d go into Nordstrom’s or a type of large shops and put advertising materials on the register cabinets. Seeing how she’s been in a position to construct her enterprise has been inspiring to me and made me really feel like if she will be able to do it, I can do it.”
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Smith additionally cites her close-knit household as a supply of inspiration. “They’re such a giant a part of this,” she says. “Reminding me to imagine in myself — it is one thing that I might pursue regardless, however to know I’ve that unimaginable assist, that is simply priceless.”
Smith stresses how necessary it’s for all aspiring ladies founders to imagine in themselves — whether or not they have that assist proper off the bat or not. “Don’t let anybody let you know you could’t obtain your wildest goals, in the beginning,” she says. “And be comfy with getting no for a solution, however hold going.”
It’s a mindset that’s already gotten the founder farther than she might need imagined only a few years in the past, as she’s grown a brand new appreciation for her physique alongside a model that helps different ladies do the identical — elevating confidence over insecurity.
“I am left with nothing however scars, actually,” Smith says. “However I really like my physique.”
