Curve Confidential
Lonna Drewes
You are not a niche. You are the market.
Somebody looked at a size range worn by an enormous share of the women in this country and called it a specialty market. With a straight face.
Here’s what actually happened. The clothes were always being made. The customers were always buying them. Somebody had to photograph those clothes, and somebody had to stand there when the design team needed to see how a garment behaved on a body that would actually wear it. That work existed the whole time. What didn’t exist was anybody admitting it out loud, putting a real division on the wall, and paying attention to it.
So no — nobody made room for you. There was already room. It just didn’t have a sign on it.
You’re not asking anyone to expand their idea of beauty. You’re a supplier walking into a business with a problem you happen to solve, and the problem is that they can’t sell clothes they can’t photograph.
That’s not a favor. That’s a purchase order.
Fifty-five short chapters on how to actually get in. What the size charts really are and why yours is fine. How to tell a real agency division from a decorative one in about ninety seconds. Who books repeatedly and what they’re doing differently. Where the money hides — because it’s almost never where you think. And what to say in a fitting room when the sample doesn’t close.
I’m not going to be delicate with you. If a category is a waste of your time I’ll say so, and if a market is uneven I’ll tell you exactly where. You’re an adult walking into a business, and being handled gently is not the same as being told the truth.
I’m not going to be delicate about the industry either, which is more fun for both of us.
You won’t find a single dollar figure in here. Rates move by market, by client, by year, and any number I printed would be wrong by the time you read it and would anchor you low forever. What you’ll get instead is how the money is actually structured — the part that doesn’t expire, and the part almost nobody understands.
Every chapter ends with Off the Record. One line, the thing I’d say quietly at the end of the story. There are fifty-five of them. Some are jokes. All of them are true.
Nothing in here will ask you to change, fix, shrink, or improve one thing about yourself. That was never what stood between you and this work. What stood there was information.
You are not a niche. You are the market.
Somebody looked at a size range worn by an enormous share of the women in this country and called it a specialty market. With a straight face.
Here’s what actually happened. The clothes were always being made. The customers were always buying them. Somebody had to photograph those clothes, and somebody had to stand there when the design team needed to see how a garment behaved on a body that would actually wear it. That work existed the whole time. What didn’t exist was anybody admitting it out loud, putting a real division on the wall, and paying attention to it.
So no — nobody made room for you. There was already room. It just didn’t have a sign on it.
You’re not asking anyone to expand their idea of beauty. You’re a supplier walking into a business with a problem you happen to solve, and the problem is that they can’t sell clothes they can’t photograph.
That’s not a favor. That’s a purchase order.
Fifty-five short chapters on how to actually get in. What the size charts really are and why yours is fine. How to tell a real agency division from a decorative one in about ninety seconds. Who books repeatedly and what they’re doing differently. Where the money hides — because it’s almost never where you think. And what to say in a fitting room when the sample doesn’t close.
I’m not going to be delicate with you. If a category is a waste of your time I’ll say so, and if a market is uneven I’ll tell you exactly where. You’re an adult walking into a business, and being handled gently is not the same as being told the truth.
I’m not going to be delicate about the industry either, which is more fun for both of us.
You won’t find a single dollar figure in here. Rates move by market, by client, by year, and any number I printed would be wrong by the time you read it and would anchor you low forever. What you’ll get instead is how the money is actually structured — the part that doesn’t expire, and the part almost nobody understands.
Every chapter ends with Off the Record. One line, the thing I’d say quietly at the end of the story. There are fifty-five of them. Some are jokes. All of them are true.
Nothing in here will ask you to change, fix, shrink, or improve one thing about yourself. That was never what stood between you and this work. What stood there was information.