The Game Changers
In this award-winning podcast Sue Anstiss talks to trailblazers in women sport. These are the individuals who are knocking down barriers and challenging the status quo for women and girls everywhere. Along with openly sharing their historic careers, what drives them and how they’ve dealt with tough challenges, each episode explores key issues for equality in sport and beyond.
We’re incredibly grateful to Sport England who support The Game Changers through a National Lottery award.
You can find out about all the guests at https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Fearless Women in Sport
The Game Changers
Lucy Horsell: Leading the Way in Women’s Sportswear
Lucy Horsell is a woman on a mission to empower female athletes at all levels as the co-founder of PeBe Sports Bras, a company that is transforming the sports bra market.
This episode tracks Lucy’s journey from losing her way in formal education at school to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
With a passion for education, science and product, Lucy's journey to merge these worlds into one innovative venture was kickstarted after seeing firsthand the challenges schoolgirls face when it comes to sports kits.
Equipped with a background in product development, Lucy is driven by an ambition to establish the sports bra as a functional and critical piece of kit.
Lucy talks so articulately about the importance of body literacy and self-care, especially in relation to breast health, as we explore the often-overlooked importance of proper sports bras for young women, the impact of breast size on participation in sport, and the need for better representation and understanding of women's needs in sportswear.
With a background in investment banking, Lucy understands the world of funding and growth and she shares the huge challenges still facing women-led businesses.
We also discuss the importance of collaboration amongst women entrepreneurs as they support each other in a competitive landscape.
Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.
Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media
A Fearless Women production
Hello and welcome to The Game Changers. I'm Sue Anstiss, and this is the podcast where you'll hear from trailblazing women in sport who are knocking down barriers and challenging the status quo for women and girls everywhere. What can we learn from their journeys as we explore key issues around equality in sport and beyond? I'd like to start with a big, big thank you to our partners, Sport England, who support The Game Changers through a National Lottery Award. I'm excited to say that in this, the 18th series of The Game Changers, I'll be talking to founders and entrepreneurs the women who have set up organisations that help change the landscape for all women and girls in sport.
Sue Anstiss:My guest today is Lucy Horsell, the co-founder of PEBE Sports Bra, a company that is transforming the sports bra market, with With a passion for education, science and product. Lucy's journey to merge these worlds into one innovative venture was kick-started after seeing first-hand the challenges schoolgirls face when it comes to sports kits. Equipped with a background in product development, Lucy is driven by a mission to empower female athletes at all levels and establish the sports bra as a functional and critical piece of kit. So, Lucy, you shared a LinkedIn post recently about the experience of heading back to your old school. You were there to talk about your career path and also to do some bra fitting, so I wonder what was that experience like, going back to your school?
Lucy Horsell:I felt old as a start, as I was fitting bras onto girls who asked me what year I'd left school, which I said was 2009. And they said, oh, that's the year we were born. I was fitting them sports bras that they absolutely needed and I thought, wow, I feel ancient. But you know what? It was pretty wild because I sort of fell out of school. If I'm honest with you, I didn't have like, I loved school, I loved sport and I had some wicked friends at school and up until GCSEs I was pretty strong minded about my education and I got really, really derailed sort of through my last few years of school and left school with no ability to go to university. I didn't have any A-levels. I really wanted to get into the world of work and I kind of wanted to get away, get away from where I grew up so I had a higgled-piggley journey, championing what I'm doing and be super supportive of that. It felt, honestly, it felt incredible. I really it was really fun to go back. I really enjoyed it and we were presenting in a in the room where I sat my A-levels. So you know, it's always in the big sports hall, isn't it? And I swear to God, I still feel sick when I walk into those rooms, I still remember the feelings. So, yeah, it was wonderful, I really enjoyed it.
Sue Anstiss:And when you were at school did you ever envisage you might become an entrepreneur or run your own businesses? Was that an ambition that you had as a school girl, or was it a university path you thought you would follow?
Lucy Horsell:Up until 16,. Yes, like to be honest with you, I always wanted to be a doctor and I, you know I was able to do it. I, just, as I said, lost my way a bit in my A-levels and I think I wasn't I wasn't that motivated by learning. I think in my last couple of years at school I was heavily motivated by business and earning money. I loved it. I think I've always been quite a passionate person and I think I needed to find something I was passionate about.
Lucy Horsell:And when I was at school we had a program called Young Enterprise. I don't know if you've come across Young Enterprise. I actually volunteer for Young Enterprise now and I work as a business mentor for them and Young Enterprise gives sixth formers the opportunity to set up and create their own business and run it for a year throughout the school year. I joined that program and it's funny because I look back on doing that when I was sort of 17, 18. And my role in our team was the sales director and I think I've always been heavily driven by the commercial side of business and you know, winning customers, pitching, presenting and getting people fired up about what we do, and we used to stand on the stand at parents' days flogging out what was a calendar. We created a calendar and I think that probably definitely sparked something in me in terms of getting underneath the roots of what business meant, and I loved learning how businesses breathe and grow and how they are, this real entity that needs so much thought around them, beyond just the idea.
Lucy Horsell:I grew up with a dad who set up his own business and he's a proper entrepreneurial spirit and I still remember to this day I was sitting around the table with dad and him telling us his business idea and me thinking that is rubbish. I had to keep my own hat this year because he sold the business and he's done fantastically well and, funnily enough, his business was an e-commerce business. It was school uniform and selling school uniform on the internet, which I thought was rubbish at the time because back then we didn't really use the internet, it wasn't a thing. And here I am running an e-commerce business and, yeah, I said really having to eat my hat on that opinion of my dad's company. It shows just the power of role models, doesn't it? The power of what you see when you're growing up with your own eyes. It gives you the confidence to think well, I could do that.
Sue Anstiss:And what was that journey then? So what inspired you to start PB Sports Bras? Where did that come from?
Lucy Horsell:So after school I went actually into corporate corporate finance and I spent five years in private equity, which I was horrendous like hardest years of my life, and I qualified at the same time. So I did my exams in line with that, which I think like genuinely to this day, like I look back on and there's people I worked for back then I'm still in contact with now who absolutely whipped me into shape and there's not a day that goes by with running this business where I don't lean into that qualification and my understanding of finance and accounts and certainly like M&A and private equity as we go through the next couple of years, the business looking at things like funding. And I was very happily doing that and I was glad I did my exams because I am a big believer in like building up your personal confidence by really owning your biggest insecurities and and for me it was always the fact that I never got a levels. I never went to uni. I needed to earn my place in a room and I think being able to qualify properly in something that was widely respected helped me massively. And then I joined my dad's company so he was doing what is school blazer and his business partner contacted me to say they wanted to expand over to Australia and would I go and get involved. And I was sort of 24, 25.
Lucy Horsell:I finished all my exams and one of the things I loved most about corporate finance was getting to know the businesses we represented and seeing them through the process of either a management buyout or a sale, a trade sale or a private equity sale. And I used to watch these, you know management teams that would be part of this process and they would be in the room when everything got signed and they'd be given, you know, equity in the company or they'd get this huge injection of cash and the founder would leave. And I used to look at them and think I want to be you, I want that really attractive balance sheet and I want to be given the reign of the business and go yeah, go and grow it. And so I was sort of fizzling out, I think a bit in advisory and when they contacted me and said they wanted to do Australia and they sort of needed somebody who, I guess, understood the nuts and bolts of the company to be able to grow it over there. And I can sell and I'm not scared to put myself out there. So I joined the company to go and do that and moved over to Sydney, which was brilliant, albeit it coincided with Brexit, which meant after about six months we worked with a number of organizations and schools over there we had to withdraw and so I came back to the UK and started working for the UK company, which initially started with me looking at their suite of products and looking at the sports kit and going that is pants. That is the same stuff I used to have to wear at school and I remember when my dad started the business and he was just doing uniform, I was about 15, 16 when I got selected to go on a hockey tour with school and it was wicked because I was one of the youngest to go and the boys at the same time were going to New Zealand on the rugby tour and the girls were going on the hockey tour.
Lucy Horsell:We were all sponsored and it was wild. And obviously, aside from all of that adventure and all of that kudos of getting to go, what does everyone care about? It's the kit, it's the stash, and I was one of the last to go and pick my kit up because I'd had like an exam or something that meant I was last to pick it up. And you know when like a stash of kit arrives and it's all wrong, sizing is all wrong and everything comes up huge, so everyone forgets what size they ordered and takes the size they want. And I went along to get mine and it was the biggest sizes and everything. And I was quite a scrawny one and I was the youngest to go, and I remember coming home with my huge polo shirt and my enormous tracksuit bottoms and showing them to my dad and being absolutely devastated because all we wanted to do was to come back from tour and wear that kit throughout the season because everyone would be like oh she, she went on the Australia tour and it was a real badge of honor. And then when I rejoined the company was sort of 10 years later I was like the kit is actually just kind of the same and I don't want to go for a run around London in a skort and I don't want to wear a polo top and I don't believe these girls want to either.
Lucy Horsell:And so there was something really interesting happening in the school's world at the same time, because the school's world was shifting from you know, what are the Australian hockey tour team doing in pre-season and how are they performing on Saturdayss, to what percentage of the student body are partaking in sports at school. And there was this huge shift in schools to participation and I think it was coinciding with the mental health crisis. Everyone suddenly wants to talk about mental wellness and how the influence of sport has a role there. Gender neutrality was coming along the tracks, actually at a pace where you know the idea that girls were being forced to wear skorts on the hockey Astro but you know they were having a debate about whether they should wear skirts was interesting. So I did this big redevelopment of the brand where I designed things like leggings leggings that I would want to wear, that mirrored my you know sweaty Bettys, lululemons, nice running shorts that fitted my bum and my thighs because I'm a hockey player, I've got thighs.
Lucy Horsell:Nice t-shirts that weren't polo shirts and like polo shirts are interesting because they're made on a size chart that is like the polo shirt size chart, which means they're inherently boxy. So the thing I used to see in schools all the time was girls playing netball and they'd shoot and the first thing they'd do after they'd shoot would pull their top down. They wouldn't see if the ball went in they'd pull their top down and I thought that's rubbish actually. So we read about it to all these nice bits of kit and just I was really mindful of being really thoughtful about it, like with the t-shirts, for example. You know, one of the biggest cheats in the industry is to run elastane through t-shirts and call them ladies fit cap the sleeves and run elastane through. So it's all a bit clingier. And actually teenage girls in particular, and lots of women, they don't want their sportswear to be clingy. They're getting boobs, they're getting hips, they've got a bit of puppy fat. They'll naturally carry more fat at that age. They don't want something that clings to them.
Lucy Horsell:And it was through doing the development of that T-shirt I saw with my own eyes girls weren't wearing sports bras and I distinctly remember being sat at school in Cheltenham and it's Cheltenham Ladies College, beautiful school and I did a focus group with these girls. It was like my favorite part of the job was going into schools, sitting down with 20 odd girls and saying guys, I'm designing your sports kit, why don't you get involved? And then you feel like you're being heard, you can share your thoughts with me, you can tell me what you love and what you hate about your current kit and then when we come to launch it, they feel really part of that process and it feels less of this. But I'm going to stand over here and tell you what you should wear. And these girls sat in this room with me and half of them just said oh, we don't like how the t-shirts fit. And I wear the t-shirts and I'm pretty critical of my own work and I actually think they're all right. And I could just see that half of them were wearing push-up bras, so they were kind of spilling out the top. You could see they were digging in on their sides. You could see they were strapped into something that was fully sausage boobing them. I use the term sausage boob pretty loosely. It was. Sausage boobing is something most women have done, if not once, twice in their in their life, maybe their whole life.
Lucy Horsell:And I spoke to one of the directors of sport at the time and I said you know what's the deal with the girls wearing sports bras? Because I really understand that when you're 15, 16, and everything's changing, and you put on a bra and it all feels wrong, and then you put on a t-shirt and it all feels wrong, it's much easier to say we don't like the t-shirt than to go. I it's much easier to say we don't like the t-shirt than to go. I've got boobs and I don't know how to do anything with them and my bra feels funny. I'm just going to wear my hoodie and I'm going to tell you I don't like the t-shirt Because that doesn't open the conversation into breast development that they just don't really want to have, particularly with a head of sport, maybe not even with a parent.
Lucy Horsell:And this director of sports said to me you know it is a problem, they don't wear sports bras, but it's not really my place. And I also really understand that challenge because she was a female head of sport and I can understand, even as a female head of sport. How do you tackle that with the girls and beyond, just being in a position where you might make somebody feel embarrassed as a woman, what's her solution? She doesn't have one because all of us have our sports bra war stories of how it's not worked. So if you're going to open the can of worms and you need to go and get a sports bra and the girl goes, okay, well, what do I do about that? Where do I go, and your answer is, oh, I don't know, that's not very helpful either.
Lucy Horsell:And then you have, you know, parents and I did a lot of focus groups with parents at the time to try and get underneath the challenge and, like parents, fall into two camps. You've either got like you know what I grew up with, which was my dad. You know, I grew up with my dad in my teen years and and I said we have a wonderful relationship and I never would have gone to my dad and said, hey, dad, have you noticed I've got boobs. I need a sports bra Not in a million years, I think up until probably quite recently. He refers to my underwear as my smalls if I leave them in the dryer, and he's pretty okay with this stuff.
Lucy Horsell:Or you get the mums, and you get the really proactive mums that go. I know what I'll do. I'm going to take her to Marks and Spencer's. And then you just see these girls like I really don't want to go there. It's old, it's not sporty, it's not for me. So everyone just kind of sticks their head in the sands and the result of the challenge is that the girls don't feel good in their kit and they don't know what to do about it. And then they grow into women who I meet now who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s, who will say, oh, I have no a sports bra, but it rubs or it chafes or it's squishy, and so you can see how this problem like compounds.
Lucy Horsell:So my initial big business idea and it was a bit different was to buy a number of bras that I loved and go out into schools, and when I did these focus groups be able to like wholeheartedly recommend a great sports bra for each girl and it was only when I shopped the market I realized the kind of the depth of the problem and I'm not very full busted, so I was kind of somebody that got away with it and I just looked at what was out there and I saw that A none of it was suitable for a teenage girl because they're growing, which meant actually none of the products out there was really thinking about the fact that women's breasts evolve anyway, regardless of puberty. Like we all have a menstrual cycle and we might choose to have babies or we go through the menopause. Like our breasts change constantly, as do our needs. Like I'm a runner but I go to the gym. So I was somebody that had different sports bras for different things and there was no regulation, so there was no product that I could put in front of these you know impressionable young girls with the school's, you know, blessing behind me and say anything other than well. I think that one was tested, but this one's my favorite and this one won this award with this magazine. You know, it all starts to become very brand led and I feel really strongly you can't do is keep pushing brands onto vulnerable girls and women because of how it looks or because of how the advert looks.
Lucy Horsell:So I designed my first sports bra while I was working for them, which is still for sale to this day. It's called the limitless Bra and it's a real kick in the teeth, because my only real competition in schools is a bra that I bought a patent certificate for. It still sits in a sole bicycle blazer, as is our bras. By the time I launched it, I had this feeling in my heart that it wasn't enough to have it sat on a website. You needed to go to people and you needed to give them the opportunity to get fitted and you needed to be able to do that from a space of education and really get women and girls to understand that this is about investing in themselves and it's about self-care and it's not embarrassing and it's a part of their sports kit that we're just going to help them get right. So I bravely left the comfy salary and the posh job and decided I was going to go at it on my own and set up on my own this bra company which coincided with COVID. That was a complete nightmare.
Sue Anstiss:So when did PB start? Is it 2020?
Lucy Horsell:We've been trading for just shy of three years now, but there's a bit of a crossover story in here. With my co-founder, charlotte, who, at the same time that I was stepping away from this job and decided to set up this bra business and very quickly, by the way realized that operationally I was rubbish and factories was not my strength, and neither was critical paths or attention to detail my business partner, charlotte, was over in another part of London starting her business, which was always called PB, my business was called Bounce, and so we were running these concurrent processes before the stars aligned and we met each other.
Sue Anstiss:How interesting A lot of women are working with co-founders, partners that bring something else to the. And when I set up my agency a long long time ago, 25 years ago, I did it all on my own. I was a whole no, I think. Someone told me they were in business with three other guys and no one could decide who did the work, and I'm honest to it. So I then, when I did my own thing, I thought I'd do it on my own, but actually now, having Fearless Women with Kate and her having all the bits that I don't have into that, it's just it's so much better to be doing it with somebody else and you see that so much I think in female businesses.
Lucy Horsell:I can honestly say hand on heart that the day Charlotte and I sat down together we were both I certainly was at white flag territory. I was like I'm done. It's too hard. I think having the decision fatigue of having to take all of it on on your own is so exhausting. You have nobody really to talk to.
Lucy Horsell:I had a fabulous dad who had his own venture. I have a wonderful boyfriend who's wildly supportive, and I met wonderful people like Kelly you know lovely Kelly at Nixie, who was like cheerleading me from Croydon and we would chat regularly and be like, oh, I can't do this. And she'd be like, yes, you can, but even even so, nobody has skin in the game in the same way, and nobody is there on those dark nights when you're sat there going, I don't know how to do this. That goes. I think I do. I think I've got a different idea over here, and when we sat down together, I had by then been working for the well for a couple of months and you know, when Emma rang me from the well and asked me about working with them to deliver more, more of their education, it was like dream job moment. I was like this is like what I was born to do. I love doing this stuff. I couldn't shake the sense that the sports bra company idea. But there was a big part of me that thought you know what, maybe, maybe this isn't what I'm meant to do. Maybe what I'm meant to do is go out and share everything I know and upskill myself on the science and research and put myself in that education space, and then somebody else is going to have to come along and fix this product challenge, because I just don't think I'm meant to do that. I think it's too bloody hard.
Lucy Horsell:And then when I sat down with Charlotte, she was in a not dissimilar position and I said to her you know, I've got all of these potential sales. I'm really good at selling. I've got loads of schools that are keen to work with me. I've got loads of clubs that have got in touch with me. I've got this great job with the well and I can deliver this fantastic education. And Charlotte was sat there going well, I've got this brilliant business with this single product. We both had our single product. Mine was for like the A to D cup, charlotte's was for the business. I've got this great relationship with my factory. I've got all of this happening and I don't know where my sales are coming from. And I was like, well, funny, you should say that, charlotte, because I think you and I could be quite powerful together.
Lucy Horsell:And honestly, from that day, I've only cried once, and before that I cried every single day for about a year. I would sit on my boyfriend's bed at the end of the day and I would just cry and I'd be like I just don't know if I can do this, but I'm not ready to let it go, because I think it's so valuable what we're potentially able to offer. And then, the only other time I've cried since meeting Charlotte is when Charlotte had her baby last year and she went off on maternity leave. I was about five days into being on my own again and I was like, oh god, this is what life was like before Charlotte and it's not right and I don't like it.
Lucy Horsell:But honestly, since that day, like just like the weights are all gone. We just go from strength to strength. We're a powerful dynamic between the two of us and it was. It was a game changer, but I really was on my last legs. If I'm honest, I think doing it alone is incredibly hard. It it's so lonely, it's so fatiguing and you don't get to celebrate any of the highs.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, it's so true, it's so true and it's been lovely to see that from the women I've spoken to. So it wasn't a theme I thought, but actually having seen women and heard from women, it certainly does feel that is the case, I guess. Just going back to the practicality of a kind of sports bra and that sports bra space, one of my questions I'm now interested in why did you go that sports bra route and not sports wear? Because actually there's so many issues across all of sports wear. You mentioned the skorts versus the t-shirts and the polo shirts. So why was the sports wear market not your kind of focus?
Lucy Horsell:Honestly, when I designed my first bra, it was the first piece of kit that I designed myself. That was new and, as I said, I just saw so much room for improvement beyond a lot of sports kits. It's pretty good. It's just the sizing's crap. And the reason that sizing is horrible is because that's usually dictated by merchandisers and factories. It's actually not usually the person who's designed it who's decided to only run it in three sizes.
Lucy Horsell:There's a lot of like political reasons why that's a challenge, but when I saw that I genuinely every single sports bra I came across was not good enough and I just thought I just think we can do this better with the right amount of diligence and care it sort of became the real problem I wanted to solve. I guess I think you know, as a business, I'm really keen that if you're going to do something, do one thing brilliantly, do that brilliantly and don't come out with 25 okay products, 24 of which are like anything else. That's out there. Go and perfect. The one big challenge and I say this to women all the time that, like for any female athlete and I define an athlete as any woman that wants to move her body and has breast tissue whether that is running for the bus, running a marathon representing this country. Her most important bits of kit are her sports bra and her trainers, because those two things have an impact on your genuine mechanics and your injury risk as well, as you know the incremental gains that come on performance, whereas the other pieces of kit are really about preference and what you like and how it fits and how it feels, and, yeah, there's loads of room for that stuff to be better. But actually on like a baseline level, it me and kelly have this chat a lot with.
Lucy Horsell:You know her knickers, that it's your sports bra and your knickers and those bits of underwear should just be bang on for women. That that shouldn't be. When a woman's running along bright and singing front, she shouldn't be predominantly thinking, god, I can't wait to get this sports bra off, or this actually feels really uncomfortable, because all that is creating is a world where, because anatomically we have breasts, that is a problem that we have to solve and and I hate, I hate referring to it as a barrier, hate even the fact that it's never been labeled as a barrier, because it's actually very solvable and I think, whilst women's kit can be better, I don't think it necessarily stands in the way of a woman moving in the way a bra might. I think it'll bug her and it's not good enough but she'll still, probably it'll be all right. But but not having a good sports bra, it will drive women out of moving their body and it makes them feel rubbish.
Sue Anstiss:I was going to move on to ask you about that in terms of, I guess, how much the breast size contributes to girls dropping out of sport, and it's something we don't really talk about that much. But I remember reading some really shocking statistics a couple of years ago about the number of girls that drop out of sport because they're in pain or they're embarrassed about their breast size, and I guess I've never had massive boobs, so it's almost like something you haven't experienced and you haven't lived in that world. And then, when I think I read the research and I thought about the women and girls that I know and thought, oh, that's probably true, isn't it that they're probably not as active, not as sporty as the women that I've played with in teams or have done triathlons with or what have you. So how much is that an issue for young girls and changing bodies that it stops them playing sport?
Lucy Horsell:Well, I mean the reported stat is 64% of girls drop out of sport because of changes through puberty and breasts, and that's two thirds a huge number. I think I always have a bit of a view on reported stats versus the reality and it's a bit like the reported stat of 80% of women are in the wrong bra size. Like I would love to find the 20% that are, because I don't find them very often. And you know, when we work with younger girls and even older women actually women who we meet, even like the marathon show who will tell us oh, I'm not sporty. That label of I'm not sporty like what does I'm not sporty mean? I'm not sporty usually means I don't believe I belong in sport, I don't believe I have the body for sport. Like I was only at a running club the other day and somebody said, oh, I'm not an actual runner, I've got short legs and I have short legs as well.
Lucy Horsell:Women are so quick to give ourselves these negative labels around movement because we're almost shy about the things to do with our anatomy. That doesn't mean we look like we belong on the cover of Women's Fitness Magazine and big boobs are a really good example of that. But when we deal with younger girls, it really isn't just the size of the breast. It's not the girls with big boobs that come to us that we make the biggest impact on. Don't get me wrong Whatever environment we are in, we have tears. We have the girls who are full busted, and particularly those who are like narrow in the back and full busted. They're lean, but they've got big boobs. It's a game changer for them because it will genuinely stop them wanting to move their body. But we also get the other end of the spectrum, which is where I spend a lot of my time, which is the girls that are early on in their development up to that C and D cup, and they are the ones that I think you can make as much impact on that. They're the forgotten ones. And actually when we work with elite athletes, the challenge with elite athletes is up there as well, because I think people assume that elite athletes don't have breasts because they're so elite, they're so up and down flat or that they've got it solved, obviously because they're elite athletes.
Lucy Horsell:But actually the women who sit in kind of the c cup and below, or the d cup and below, they are the sausage boobers, they're the me's, they are the ones that wear the squish them down, pull over the head, the tighter the better, and they are the women who get stuck in their sports bras routinely. But that is not how life should be. But most women I meet if I say, have you ever got stuck in your sports bra? They'll go yep, definitely have Hot, sweaty session, done some arm work and I'm sort of stuck like this in the changing rooms. They are the ones who will be having their breath most impacted because they are wearing something that is so tight, because it has to pull over their head and it's just going to be clinging to them on their rib cage, which means their breathing economy is going to be impacted in a really negative way and they are way more likely to be the ones that get on with it. And they just get on with it.
Lucy Horsell:But actually, when you look at the impacts on performance, the impacts on injury, yes, there's a sliding scale. The woman who's a 28 double G is going to have more impact on her movement than the woman who's a 30C, for example. But it's still there, it's still a real thing and when we go into any environment, we always do education. That the education is to everybody, because I don't mind how little breast tissue somebody has and I don't mind how sporty they think they are, they have breast tissue. They are a woman in sport and there is stuff that we talk about that they need to know about, and that is about body literacy and self-care. We cover things like breast injury and just having a bit of a relationship with their breasts. That isn't so negative. It's like breasts in this space of a problem unless it's in a sexual environment, and then it's glorified and there's nothing in between of that. It's like our bodies are incredible and our breasts are wonderful and the amount of women I measure and fit and girls who I don't even think they want to look down, they don't want to look down and for younger girls that's new, it's newness and for a lot of them it's, you know, budding or it's asymmetry.
Lucy Horsell:It's growing unevenly that the the early moment of the day you start to get boobs for most women is oh my God, this is a problem, I need to do something about this and I need to hide it and that manifests over our lives forever and we try and row these women back later in life, when they come to us later and we'll say like you know, don't apologize to me. Every woman I fitted, particularly older women, they all apologize to me and we have a rule when we do our fittings. You know one rule when you get fitted with us, and that is no apologies. I don't want to hear them. I don't want to hear I'm really sorry, I've not shaved my armpits. I don't want to hear that, oh God, I'm wearing the ugliest bra.
Lucy Horsell:I wasn't expected to get fitted today. Please. I'm like I am not here to judge, but for the next five minutes should we just forgive you for having breasts and should we just make this about doing something lovely for you and you can shout at yourself later, if you want to, about something else, but for the next five minutes I'm here for you to look after your breasts, because that is what you deserve, regardless of your size, your sportiness, your age. You deserve that because your body's wonderful. It just needs a little bit more love. And we're pretty mean to our boobs. I always say to people like, just be a bit nicer to them. We're pretty horrible to them most of the time. We expect them to stand for attention when we want them to look fabulous, and the rest of the time we're like go away and don't get in my way and talk to me and actually like they're there. We just should probably accept that they're there.
Sue Anstiss:I love that I've got so many different ways. I want to take this conversation now, but you recently fitted me with a sports bra at an event at Sherbourne School and I have to say it has been remarkable. I mean, just I kind of thought it would have an impact, but just the impact I had. In fact, after you fitted me, I went off to deliver two workshops and when I saw you later I said I think they might be the best two sessions I've ever delivered in that environment. I felt really confident and positive and I think so much about my posture and how I felt supported and it's definitely helped me. I feel like I'm like a little case study for you here, but it's helped massively my back.
Sue Anstiss:I've had upper back pain for the last year and that has gone. I'm wearing it now. As you can see on the podcast. It's really gone, so it's been amazing. So what is the response that you have from women? Because I do think it's similar. I've, I've been, I've been all those things you've described over the years in terms of trying to find the right sports bar. But what response do you get from women and girls when, when you fit them for the first time and it and it does feel so different.
Lucy Horsell:It feels, you know, right and and comfortable it's always the oh my god, like this feels amazing and whenever we fit women that I go through a couple of when I fit. But the first thing we do when we've got the fist is say, jump around. You have to jump around, you've got to feel this for yourself. And they jump around and they go oh my God. And I say, right, this is how you deserve to feel. And frankly and I don't get wrong, I love men, not here to push men out of the conversation, but this is how men get to feel Like can you imagine a world where, if you decide to get up to go for a run, all you've got to do is you pull on your shorts, you pull on your t-shirt, you pull on your trainers and you're out the door? Us women. Well, what knickers am I going to wear? What am I going to do with my hair? Like if I put it up? And I grew up with a brother and I've watched them and I think for women it's that moment of feeling what it feels like to not have breasts when you want to move your body is extraordinary. It is a massive moment and you'll remember from when I fitted you, sue, like when we go through our fitting process. There's lots of thought in our bra that's well beyond just the motion of breasts. That is the positioning of the breasts on the body, the anchoring of the breast weight between the shoulder blades to alleviate any posture concerns and help you stand better, which is going to help you breathe better. And I do believe that taking that time with women to explain that to them A it's a few moments where somebody's just thinking about them, which I think for women doesn't happen very often, particularly when it comes to their bodies. And for me, it's really about getting women to reconnect with their body, because their body knows how their body wants to feel, like our bodies know. When I fist you straight away, I said to you you'll know where to fit this bra, because when the weight of your breasts taken off your shoulders and into this fabric, you're gonna feel good, your brain is gonna. That feels amazing. So it's like getting us to like dial back in with knowing what's right for us, as opposed to what a website says or what a label says or what somebody on Instagram says. You know what's right for your body. And there's lots of thought in that fitting process where we get women to really re-engage with that and even if they don't wear our bra, even if they don't buy our bra, I always am really conscious of giving them the best advice we can so that when they go out to shop, they are not going to be subjected to the marketing noise that is going to drive them into buying more and more product that isn't going to work for them. Because I really believe this.
Lucy Horsell:Whenever a woman puts on an item of clothing that doesn't fit her, our narrative is always my body's the problem. I work in what I do and I spend all day, every day, trying to make women feel good about their bodies, and I am not immune to the H&M changing rooms. We've all had that moment where you go into H&M or Zara and you pull out a pair of jeans that's the same size as the ones you bought not long ago, and you go into the changing rooms and you're trying to get them on and you can't pull them up, and they've got those awful like mirrors behind you as well, which I just don't think anyone should see themselves from that angle and you're like this is awful, and all any of us do is go. I must have put on weight, my body's changed. We never go. That's done on a different size chart, a different factory, and that's crap and needs to be better. Like none of us are resilient enough for that.
Lucy Horsell:So showing women how to get stuff to work for them as opposed to going oh actually, you know, you're sort of in between sizes, so you need to wear that size in this style and that size in this style and this one in this, it just starts to become this real massive complexity that I think makes us just blame ourselves all the time and it's negative. It's the negative. Relationship that's there already is something I really take pride in unraveling a little bit. Relationship that's there already is something I really take pride in unraveling a little bit. Or in a younger girl stopping from happening, get them early and stop that from becoming a thing, setting them up for a much better approach to their body, sort of in other areas that are more you know, more challenging for them.
Sue Anstiss:Perhaps it's so important, isn't it? And I think the thing for me is probably about breath. I think when you were talking there and I was thinking, probably that is the thing, isn it? It's about breathing, which is kind of important, isn't it? Breathing and speaking? But I think that's how it makes, when it makes me feel tall and able to breathe. I guess what would you say? Clearly, your bras are amazing. I would definitely vouch for that, but they're not cheap either, and nor should they be. But is there an issue for families generally? I've got three daughters, so actually to have equipped all of those in great sports bras would be an expense. I guess what would you say to people that are either reticent to buy a high quality sports bra, or how we address that to get everybody in a great sports bra?
Lucy Horsell:well, yeah, there's two, two sides of this isn't there? Because I think the first part is no, they're not cheap. They're also not the most expensive. You know the sports bra market. You can spend seven pounds at Primark and you can spend 110 pounds at Lululemon. You know, we're sort of firmly in the middle of that and we price our bras to reflect genuinely the cost to make them and the cost to do what we've done and the quality of the fabric.
Lucy Horsell:And it's really important in bras is things like the integrity of the fabric, because we hope that our bras would last a good year for somebody who's pretty active. So, actually, really about the value of that, it's like, you know, one bra that lasts you a year, that you get really good wear out of, versus what I used to have, which was 15 different sports bras, all of which lasted about three washes and then felt completely different, and, yes, they were all maybe less expensive probably 20, 25, 30 quid. The value of my sports bra drawer once upon a time was quite, you know, punchy and it's really, you know, actually buying something and investing in something that is quality and is going to give you that amount of wear is where it really comes into play and, in particular, things like the adjustment. So then you're saying to somebody you know you can wear this bra up here for running and down here for the gym. If you're somebody who is, you know, going through her pregnancy, like Charlotte was, this is going to last you, you know, hopefully about two trimesters really. So you're buying something that's going to carry you through like this period of your life or a girl going through puberty.
Lucy Horsell:You know, if you had three daughters that were under 18, you might go bloody hell. Lucy, your bra's 65 quid. I've got, you know, six pairs of boobs I've got to look after in my house. But I'm sure that one of your biggest challenges as a parent is buying something and then next week it doesn't fit her. So actually buying something that you can see is going to capture two cup sizes of fluctuation, which for most girls. I've done a lot of research into looking at the bell curve of puberty and the changes across breast sizes in a teenage girl. That should cater for a good year of a girl. It's also going to allow her to wear it all day, from school to sport, and I think you know I never want to celebrate parents that they're going to find in the bottom of a drawer at the end of term and go, great, that was a good use of money because it's just sat in their games bag all term.
Lucy Horsell:Like having something that actually going to get use out of is where you bring that value in. And for us as a brand, you know our value add is where we really want to shine, which is there's a lot of time and knowledge that's gone into our fitting experience, our education and, yes, our product. But actually having that, you know, an Instagram page where you can message with your questions, somebody who can help you do your fitting, somebody who can give you some advice around asymmetry or signpost you towards fantastic women like you know, baz at the well, if they're actually, I really do struggle with my breath and I've got a nightmare with my pelvic floor. Okay, well, let's unpack that a little bit. Let's see how we can maybe solve some of these problems and work out what's really going on for you, and so I it's genuinely not push back. We get is on the prize, and I think when we go into schools, for example, you know the school will get us in to deliver this service for parents. And it's all good news for parents because we're removing potentially something that they worry about more than maybe they would care to admit, which is I sort of don't ever want her to fall out of love with sport because she's growing into a woman like that's such a sad thing, I think, as a parent, to see happen. And we offer a discount in those environments to schools, you know, to parents, so that they can, you know, if they've got three daughters in the school, we can help them get them all kitted out, because that's what we want. I want girls wearing our bras and running around them and loving them. And coming back to us in a year and it is knackered and they're like, wow, I need another bra and I'm like, good, you've worn it to death. That is great news. And then I think, kind of on a bigger scale than that, you know, finding funding that's available to help with this is something I'm very keen on and I know it's out there because we find it.
Lucy Horsell:One of my probably biggest frustrations at the moment is around funding and around sponsors in sport, and it's really hard because I'm a very stubborn person. I'm very stubborn when it comes to what we stand for as a brand in particular and I've had numerous conversations where I go on to calls with you know big organizations that champion women's sport and their answer to me is well, if you gift us 25 bras for our top team, uh, we'll do a really nice photo shoot with those ladies for you and it's great pr and you'll get loads of noise and loads of recognition for that. And I'm like are you really suggesting that we do this? Like you're asking us to use your female athletes, who have worked enormously hard to perform at the level they are performing and the sacrifice they have made, we are going to use their body as a pawn in our commercial game so that I feel good and I get loads of marketing and you feel clever because you've supported your female athletes. Like that is not the world I want to live in. That is not a world I want to advocate and I'm pretty firm on that and we just won't do it like we can't afford to give bras away anyway.
Lucy Horsell:If I had 25 bras to give away, I'd rather go down to a run club in Brighton and gift those bras out to the hardworking mums that pull two jobs and the girls that are in a local state school that don't have sport in their timetable but go running in an evening with their dad. Like I, would rather those bras go to those communities, but it's a challenge because, obviously, where we are as a business, as you know, we're still in our infancy it's very easy to have these carrots dangled and they look very, very tempting, and they know this. They know that they can do that to us and I refuse to do it. I think there's cleverer ways of funding access, and it doesn't have to be access to our product, but access to the education. Like a sports bra should not be a privileged piece of kit. Every woman has breasts and every woman should be able to look after them well and have the shopping hacks, which is something that we champion. Doing is like if you're going to go into Decathlon, this is how you do it and this is how you find good product without being a sucker for a tag that shouldn't be privileged for girls or women. That should be stuff that we should know about and I always use the analogy. You know again not to not try and shame men, our wonderful counterparts that are men.
Lucy Horsell:But you know, if there was an issue with boys, balls bouncing around and little boys didn't want to play football because their balls bouncing and it was really embarrassing and everyone could see.
Lucy Horsell:And you know we had professional footballers or rugby players dropping out of sport because their balls were massive, Like. I promise you the big brands would have solved that problem. It would be solved and they would be accessible, they would be free. You know, harry kane would be running around with his ball bra on, looking awesome and making them look really cool and boys would talk about it in schools and everyone would have to hear about their balls all the time. And and for us girls and as women, we're so quick to just shy away and go oh, it's my problem, I'll solve it over here quietly on my own and I don't really want to talk. Shy away and go. Oh, it's my problem, I'll solve it over here quietly on my own and I don't really want to talk about it. And I just think there's ways of using funding really cleverly to really shift that whole narrative in a different direction for women.
Sue Anstiss:I love that. I love that. So are you seeking investment for the business at the moment? I've been talking to different entrepreneurs on this series. Some are looking at different forms of funding. Is that something you're in the journey for? You're obviously quite new, relatively new, in terms of the business.
Lucy Horsell:Yeah, we are. We're still fully self-funded. Myself and Charlotte fully funded the business ourselves. We've been very fortunate. We've applied for a couple of grants which we've been gifted by Innovate UK, which has been wonderful. So I don't know if you've ever done anything with Innovate UK, but we've been so proud to win those grants because they're really hard to get and, um, and I'm not even going to take credit for it, because Charlotte is just a fantastic application writer for grants, she nails them and that's really off the back of.
Lucy Horsell:Like. You know, we champion as a brand that our product is driven by science and we obsess about the research and we always want to invest that back into the research, which is what we did and we love. We love that and I love working in that space. So that's carried, as I'd say, on. Like so far, we've had a couple of times where we've sat down a bit like, right, we need some investment, let's go and find it, and we've got very close to it, and then every time we get pretty close, we sort of look again and think we've actually had a really good couple of months.
Lucy Horsell:I'm not sure we have to take this yet and and I said my background and what I do and you know Charlotte's background is also with Barclays, and it is like the golden rule is like you hang on to your equity until you absolutely have to give it away. And we are fierce about that because we don't. We know what business we have built and we know how special it is and we know how special that is going to be as it grows and I don't want somebody else taking a part of that away. And we love that autonomy because it means we can be nimble, it means we can evolve, it means we can change how we do things. If it means the world needs something different, we can run after that and do it differently.
Lucy Horsell:And I know that the change an investor would make to that it would have to be the right investor with the right heart and all the values aligned with us. And I think we'll be in that position. You know where we're in sort of our scaling time now and we're scaling at pace. But I said so far, every time we think we're sort of cutting it a bit, fine, we sort of get through, and so we hang on for a little bit longer. So I think it's coming down the tracks don't get me wrong, like we'll be definitely on that path, probably in sort of six to 12 months, I would say, because we have big ambitions and we do. Our ambitions are huge. So, yeah, we'll probably be opening that can of worms again.
Sue Anstiss:And going back to the people we were speaking to previously, and without giving away any trade secrets, but can you share any of those ambitions for kind of where you go to in terms of products or programs or the, the pb entity in itself?
Lucy Horsell:I mean we as a brand. What we stand for is, you know, we're called pb because we were initially the acronym pb personal best and our goal is to help women perform and train at their best. I see us going well beyond bras. I think we've done something really special with our bras. We always wanted to be able to stand up and say we are the best bra on the market as per the biomechanical testing, not as per someone's opinion, a poll, a survey, a this, a star rating. All of that stuff matters, I get it, but the independent people who test biomechanics of women and test sports bras globally have ranked us as the best, and that is what we wanted to get to and we've done that, which is amazing and who is that?
Sue Anstiss:Sorry, who does those tests? Portsmouth University? It is Portsmouth, I was going to ask you.
Lucy Horsell:Portsmouth are fantastic because they have they've done it for the longest they have the most amount of testing, testing, research. So they've tested just shy of 400 sports bras, which in itself tells you how, why we're so confused as women, because that's only the tested ones so many sports bras out there and so they have the yeah, the most data of the market. They have the facilities test. There are other organizations that have the facilities test, but portsmouth like I genuinely mean this on live, so like on a global scale are leading the way with how they manage that research and the amount of data they've collected over the years by testing so many products in a controlled environment. So we feel like we've nailed the bra, which is wonderful, and I feel like there's a huge amount of work to do with getting that out there and, as I said, even just the education and the help, and but I really believe that I know I have a lot of other ideas, as you mentioned at the start, like other areas of kit that just need to be better and and I don't think any of that stuff is especially hard and I think I know how to do it it's bandwidth that will hold us back and it's cash flow because we we have 54 sizes in our bra and we only have um. You know, we have the ice blue in both styles. We have black in the gravity bra. We'd have, you know, we have the ice blue in both styles. We have black in the gravity bra. We'd like to, you know, bring out another color, but that's not the priority, because the ice blue is just great, because it works fine white and it solves the problem. I don't want to have 15 colors and just be another. We churn it through with the seasons, you know. Yes, fashion is important and we're allowed to care that we look nice, but fashion isn't going to drive our merchandising and it isn't going to drive our product runway, because that's not what women need. So I think expanding into other product areas is something we're super excited to do. It's again, it's just time and it's just being able to to manage that effectively and come at it quite differently.
Lucy Horsell:As I said, we're we're militant about our approach and that means things don't happen quick, but I think that's okay. I'm really comfortable with that. We just do things our way, we do them right, we do them well and I think for women, you know, one of my favorite books is Shoe Dog. It's, you know, the Nike, the story of Nike. You know. Look what Nike did. They nailed the trainer and I think if you've got a brand where you go, do you know? I love their bra. It fits me really well. I've met the team. The fitting was excellent.
Lucy Horsell:They've obviously put loads of thought into this. You then have built your credibility in the eyes of women of we're going to now bring out this product and it's going to be equally thoughtful and equally we're going to care about what you need, as opposed to go right now. Here's our jumper and here's our scrunchie, and here's our socks and here's our leggings and here's our. Oh my God, just more product, more product being thrown at us all the time. So I think thoughtful expansion within product range is something we're super keen on.
Lucy Horsell:You know our team's grown. We're now a team of seven, which is wild to say, like seven people like, including me and charlotte, which is amazing. We don't want to spread ourselves too thin, but we are in this constant tussle of like. Yes, schools are brilliantly important to us, and don't I? Honestly, my heart, heart is in schools. I love being in schools with girls. I think they're brilliant.
Lucy Horsell:Our website bubbles along and it does really well.
Lucy Horsell:We don't put a lot of energy into it because we can't, because we don't have the bandwidth.
Lucy Horsell:And then we have our work within Elite Sport, which is brilliantly exciting and we love and I actually love the tussle over things like sponsorship and navigating those more complicated conversations and being able to stand up in what is usually quite a male-dominated room and go, no, no, we're not going to do it your way.
Lucy Horsell:This is what we're going to do because this is what the women in your care need. And, yes, today she might be, you know, sarah who plays for Scottish hockey, but next year she might not be, but she'll still be Sarah who has breasts and needs a sports bra, and I want her to buy into us and love us as Sarah. It's wonderful that she's performing at the level she is, but we're here for her in a bigger picture than that. So I think growing out into those channels is always, as everything is, limited by cash, because you can't grow too quick, and limited by how quickly you can, you know, grow your team to facilitate that. So that's kind of uh yeah, what I think the next 12 to 18 months looks like, which is brilliant.
Sue Anstiss:I can't wait very exciting, yeah, exciting times ahead, and I did mention you were my inspiration for this series. So we sat and talked and I thought that's amazing story. I want to share that and and from that I kind of asked you and I built out from there to ask other women working within this space, and I love the unintentional crossover I've been seeing from different guests that are supporting each other, and I know that, as you said, you've been working with Baz and the Well HQ as well. So can you tell us a bit more about, I guess, how women work in that space and that collaboration, because I do feel I've really witnessed that in talking to different women. You know I was gonna say is it real? But clearly it is, because everyone's telling me it is oh it is.
Lucy Horsell:It is like when I honestly, when I was on my knees on my own, kelly was one of the first people I met Kelly from Nixie, body and um and she's just one of the most extraordinary people I think I've met. She is so warm and such a champion of other women, and I am too, and I really want to always be that way, because I think it was Baz or Emma at the well who said to me you know, a rising tide lifts all boats, and I think that's really true, and I think one of the powers that women have is that we are very capable of collaborating and we're not that quick to be threatened, is that we are very capable of collaborating and we're not that quick to be threatened. And I love that, because I think the only way people like us and people like Kelly and people like Baz and these wonderful female-founded like ball-busting businesses are going to survive is if we stick together, because if we stick together, we can lock out the big bad brands that are going to make life hard for us and we can genuinely elevate each other's opportunities. And I always want to be that way towards other women, and particularly other women who have gone out alone, because they will have felt the same pains. We have a huge amount in common. Even if they're a competitor, you know, even if they're in the same spaces, we have loads of common ground and there is space for all of us to succeed.
Lucy Horsell:And you know, one of my favorite sayings in life is calling someone else fat doesn't make you thin. Someone doesn't have to be wrong for you to be right. We can all be right and we can all be right in a really collaborative, supportive way where we just keep lifting each other up, because that is what we stand for as a brand. We're all about empowering women, and whether that's a woman who's in front of us with big boobs and in tears, a girl at school who's hit puberty and is having a meltdown, or another woman that's out there slogging away to build her own business, we are all here for each other and it doesn't take a lot to kind of go through life with an attitude of just support and care and love people and look after them, because I don't want to go to bed at night feeling like, well, I'm really glad I did that today, but I was a bit of a bitch to so-and-so. That's not who I am and that doesn't sit right with me, that's not our vibe at all.
Lucy Horsell:So I think that what you've done with the collective and the network is extraordinary and I think network for women is really, really key, because being on your own is crap and when I was on my own I had allies like Kelly, like Baz and Emma, and they were my colleagues. You know, they were my go-tos and that was a game changer for me. And you know, when we come together in a room with everyone who's got their own story and their own frustration and their own scene they're stressing about. I have never come away from one of those events without another good idea, a bit of a solution, a new contact, somebody that can put me in front of somebody else. And they've met me, so they know me and they know what I need.
Lucy Horsell:Like that is incredible and I think that's where women and men are very different in their attitude and it is our superpower and we should embrace our superpowers of being able to be open-minded and be able to do that. You know we've got to look after each other. We're still banging drums in a male space. We are still doing and we will be doing that for the rest of, certainly, our lifetime. Maybe the generation behind us will have, you know, a different landscape that they walk into, but we're going to be pushing against closed doors forever, so we should help each other push how amazing is lucy.
Sue Anstiss:I love her passion for the topic and we wish her and PB well for the future. If you'd like to hear from more trailblazers like Lucy, there are over 200 episodes of the Game Changers that are free to listen to on all podcast platforms or from our website at fearlesswomencouk wellnesswomencouk. Along with entrepreneurs, my other guests have included elite athletes, coaches, broadcasters, scientists, journalists and ceos all women who are changing the game in sport. As well as listening to all the podcasts on the website, you can also find out more about the women's sport collective, a free, inclusive community for all women working in sport. We now have over eight and a half thousand members, so please do come and join us.
Sue Anstiss:The whole of my book Game On the Unstoppable Rise of Women's Sport is also free to listen to on the podcast. Every episode of series 13 is me reading a chapter of the book. Thank you once again to sport england for backing the game changers and the women's sport collective through a national lottery award, and also to sam walker at what goes on media, who does such a brilliant job as our executive producer. Thank you also to my lovely colleague at fearless women Women, kate Hannon. You can find the Game Changers on all podcast platforms, so please do follow us now and you won't miss out on future episodes. Come and say hello on social media, where you'll find me on LinkedIn and Instagram at Sue Anstis, the Game Changers fearless women in sport.
