Spotlight: Bomb Petite launches first petite fashion brand in the UK
London-based Jenny Liu is on a mission to help petite women find premium fashion from leading independent designers.
Last year, she launched Bomb Petite, a high-end online fashion marketplace dedicated to petite women who stand at five feet four inches or 163cm and under. The site has already been featured in The Independent, In-Style and Glamour Magazine and attracted a loyal customer base in the US.
About the entrepreneur
Liu, 28, is a Taiwanese-American who moved to London in her early twenties to work with high-end fashion brands including Agent Provocateur, Burberry and All Saints before finding a gap in the market.
As a petite individual, she always felt that the fashion options for smaller women were limited and brands tried to make regular sizes fit, rather than putting petite women first.
She explains, “If you wear a size 10 on your feet, you wouldn’t be offered a size 11 shoe and just manage or spend your life wearing thicker socks. Clothing should be no different.”
Currently, over 86 million UK and US women fall into the petite size category and as much as 50% of the population is under five foot four.
How the business works
The Bomb Petite website acts as an online marketplace, combining a number of specialist petite designers from across the globe including Hong Kong, Estonia and Vietnam. This gives customers a variety in clothing such as little black dresses, skirts, jackets and evening wear.
Jenny works hard to find designers that cater to the petite market and make collections fresh for each season. The website takes a percentage for every transaction that goes through and they do not hold any stock.
The launch of the website attracted a lot of interest through social media, with a combined following of over 20,000 fashionistas across Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram. The trend has caused big players in the industry to follow suit with their own fashion collections petite line.
The website also acts a community for like-mind and fashion-obsessed petite where they can share style tips.
Some of the most popular topics have included how to make your legs look longer (and by the way, its wearing vertical patterns on your trousers, not horizontal) and how to dress for your shape whether you have an hourglass or pear-shaped figure.
The business is currently self-funded and is looking to secure a round of investment in January next year.
