When researching into the identity and brand narrative of Sweaty Betty I did an interview with Carnaby flagship store supervisor Michaela:
What is your typical customer?
"That’s quite a tough one for this area, because we do get a lot of tourists as we’re in central London and at the top of Carnaby Street; we have a lot of international customers, quite a lot of Middle Eastern people and then Canadians as well, because there’s no Sweaty Betty in
Canada. Then apart from that, we do you have our regular people who tend to be office workers nearby. There’s lots of gym spaces round here so we have our pilates studio downstairs and Cycles nearby here, we have ambassadors with, who pretty much sell our brand and we sell theirs. It is generally fit people and across the whole spectrum of fitness. We have yoga people, full on HIIT people, a bit of everyone really, it is a broad-spectrum of
customers. Most are probably 30s to 40s, more the middle-age demographic whereas people sometimes assume it’s for young people."
What do you think of sweaty betty as a brand?
"I think it’s functional and it’s fun and stylish, so the whole point is that it’s fit for purpose because it’s designed by women. It’s such a dream because I buy Nike leggings which are randomly baggy in weird places as there designed by men who just don’t know the physique of a woman. They’re also trial tested in head office and buy all our workers, so the company can see it fits the purpose and is comfortable. We also have lots of fun prints like elephant prints and ,when it was London theme for 2012, we have pigeons on leggings. It is a bit of fun and it’s clothing you can wear to the gym but then you can go out in public in it. So after work, I’ll leave home and I’ll go to the bar and it’s absolutely fine because it’s fitness clothes but it’s also daywear."
How do you think the Sweaty Betty is dealing with sustainability and fast fashion?
"That doing really well actually, especially this year, Simon and Tamara have contacted the stores personally as we are front facing customers and they are getting all the feedback like ‘I don’t want a bag... why do things come in plastic’ etc. This year we launched a pair of leggings made completely from plastic bottles and these are going to be relaunched in the New Year. Then we also have a recycling scheme, where you can bring in any pair of leggings
whether they’re from Sweaty Betty or anywhere else, we recycle them and you get £10 off your next purchase. We send them to SOEX where they sought through the fibres and fabric and work out what can be recycled. Also from the warehouse all of our stuff comes in packaging, as the dye will run if they don’t wrap in plastic, but they wrap it in type 4 plastic which is recyclable. Now they send the packages ‘naked’, so just in a compostable pouch with one plastic bag, which we will send to Turkey to make rooves. Also a lot of stuff is repurposed so all of our Italian fleece stuff, (we’re the only company that use it in the UK for five years), they cut out the material and there’s a lot of waste, so they’ve kept all of that waste and recycled it, so all of our Italian fleece products are 45% recycled from previous years. It’s so nice to work for a place that do this because they want too, not because the consumer wants it, Tamara and Simon are so eco friendly, even in our Christmas party and events we had vegan food. They see that it’s having an impact on the environment, so as a company they want to reduce that impact in every way they can."
How do you think the Sweaty Betty lifestyle aspect of the brand translates into the clothing?
"I think kind of as I said, the fact you can wear it anywhere and how it fits the purpose and there’s something for anyone, for the gym goer something for a mum who wants to just wear comfy leggings at home, and we don’t have specific maternity wear, but there are specific styles that we recommend and that are received really well by pregnant women. As a lifestyle thing we have so many events like Wellness Wednesdays so every Wednesday industry professionals, usually from London but sometimes from around the UK, talk about
different wellness stuff, so we’ve had talks about sleep, a talk about balance of your hormones, things like that. At all of these events we have a little product like for the sleep one we had a hot chocolate tasting tea, that helps to sleep. It’s really interesting to show people beyond the world of fashion. And we have a studio downstairs, where all the other stores do free classes they just clear the shopfloor and it becomes a fully functioning studio space. With the local ambassadors or someone nearby comes and teaching the class. Farmgirl, upstairs, their balance is the same as ours they have all the health and organic products but they also have sweet treats as well, so it’s not just a purist lifestyle."
What would you say makes you feel happy all empowered as a woman?
Being empowered, which I actually do you get from Sweaty Betty, is being around women and seeing people, especially women, doing well. Companies that are on 90% female and the highest position in the company are held by females. It is empowering to see women lead the way. Then, within all our stores, I don’t know how they do it but they manage to hire the nicest people. There’s never cattiness, never competition. Obviously fitness and that is really helpful, as well because it’s always been a bit of a male dominated industry so it’s nice that we can come in and stand alone as a brand. All of our instructors are female and wear our brand, but it’s also nice that we do have males involved. And that they are so supportive, as it has to be a two-way system to support one another making everyone equal."
If Sweaty Betty was to have a new digital platform like an app or podcast what do you think would be most successful?
"Podcasts would go great because it is literally a podcast world out there right now. I know we have recorded all of our Wellness Wednesdays etc, which are live streamed, so yeah I think the podcast would do well. On our youtube channel there’s quite a lot of fitness videos that are put up from stateside and here, so an app with some sort of regime could be really good. But also with a broad spectrum of things like who to follow; even every team meeting we have who to follow, recipe of the month that we’ll have to try and influences etc. As well as what the brand are doing. Recently there was this girl who came in store here, and she was about to do a triathlon; she just got back from cycling the UK. As she was cycling along the way people came and met her to do beach cleanups, where they picked up so many tons of plastics. She was also the first woman to sail across the Atlantic after having cancer or something. Something that has a focus on women and doing well in fitness but also in other areas as well."
St.
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