Can you describe your role within the Nubian Skin team and how it contributes to the brand's overall mission?
Hey! My name is Olivia, I am the Senior Product Developer and Designer here at Nubian Skin. My job is essentially to create the products that you all know and love! I am in charge of how everything fits, making sure it is made exactly by the factory to my specification and ensuring the quality of all our production.
What inspired you to join Nubian Skin, and what aspects of the brand's vision resonate with you the most?
I joined Nubian Skin 3 years ago now, and the reason I loved the idea of working for Nubian Skin is that I felt like it would give my job a higher purpose. Lots of people always used to say to me, particularly during Covid that my job wasn’t necessary, and I always felt as though my profession didn’t have a very deep purpose other than fashion, it was never something that really changes lives. The opportunity to work for Nubian Skin, to me was an opportunity to make my profession mean something. I was no longer creating lingerie for ‘fashion’, I am part of a movement that is filling a gap in the industry, and allows our customer to feel seen, this is the kind of lingerie that changes lives.
How do you collaborate with the founder and other team members to translate ideas into tangible products?
Myself and Ade work closely together when we are either creating a new product or improving a current product, this involves approval of designs, all the way through to approval of production, and everything in-between. I get on with the most of it myself, particularly pattern work, technical information for our factory, making samples and design specifications, but I like to know that everyone is the team is happy with what we are creating to be able to feel as though we are doing something amazing!
What are some of the key challenges you face in your role, and how do you overcome them?
There are lots of challenges when it comes to product development as things don’t always go to plan, and samples don’t always turn out how you’d like! But my number 1 challenge is probably sampling. Sometimes it takes more samples than planned to create the perfect fit, we must have made at least 20 of our Naked Fuller-Bust Bra when we recently improved the fit and extended the size range. The fit on it is more than perfect now!
How do you incorporate customer feedback into the product development process?
We absolutely love getting feedback from customers, it makes my job so great to know that our customers want to see us improve too! I always take on board whatever we receive, and I always LOVE hearing customers’ ideas on what new things we can do next!
Can you share any upcoming projects or innovations that you're particularly excited about?
We have a really exciting launch later this year which I’m not going to delve too deep into. But more soon than that, we are launching a wider boob tape for fuller-bust sizes, and silicone nipple covers, which the whole team is SO excited about!
In your opinion, what sets Nubian Skin apart from other lingerie brands, and how do you contribute to maintaining that uniqueness?
The huge thing that sets Nubian Skin apart from other brands are our colors. Ade created our colors over 10 years ago now, they are not in the Pantone spectrum, they are completely custom colors made to blend in seamlessly with your skin tone and biased or not, they are all absolutely beautiful colors just as brown neutrals as well. I can’t personally take credit for this but I love to think our fit also sets us apart from other brands, as many months of work go into making our products feel like a second skin, I have definitely contributed to this over the years!