Braconomics 2022 Update : Whats in a Bra Measurement $33Billion year in year out Harlette Contribution to Saudi Arabia Economy for 11 years running

It was a full moon as I left Brighton, I had just visited a made in UK corset factory and got to talking about how you measure for a corset. A few years later, a similar conversation happened with a very well known corset maker that was fitting me for a corset and the measuring process was discussed.

I first learnt about True Size Measurement when had a a few days work experience in Rigby Peller and then when I worked at a brand that had a store in Selfridges when brands were ranging from £2,000 pounds to £7,000 pounds a day and the floor on average was making £56,000 a day in lingerie sales on a great day brands ranged from £5000 to £10000 a day and I sold the most expensive set back then for £1300.00

Depending on the brand depended on the way you measured a customer. A few weeks ago I discovered that some brands have what is called “Vanity Sizing” and this was something I observed in Saudi Arabia in 2009 when I first conducted the Bra Measuring Module of the 10 day Training Course on How to Sell Lingerie as up till then only men were selling Lingerie and the brand store I was taken to in their shopping mall in Jeddah only had sizes up to DD, not an E,F,G or H in site.

Very curious as coming from London where it was booming in the plus size cups. This trip required me to measure an entire class and some of their friends and family when I arrived at the house as this service of measuring wasnt available in Saudi at the time. True Size Measurement is Different to Manufacturing Measurement.

As Manufactureres use Vanity Sizing to do this yourself take a tape measure in Inches around the rib cage and then at the highest part of the bra line and subtract the rib from the cup and you have the cup size. If the maker has true size measurement. If the maker has vanity sizing check their site for their cup size often a G or H can be renamed DDD in a vanity size.

This course got media attention around the world, Sweden, NewZealand, Australia, Malaysia and even a Washington Analyst wrote a section of his book about this class Thomas Lippman Saudi Arabia on the Edge. The suprising thing that occured as a result of this course, two years later the King of Saudi Arabia changed the law using his decree to allow women to work.

Braconomics 2022

This course resulted in 500,000 legally now able to work $66,000 USD a year began to appear in the Saudi Arabia economy which for the math boffins equals $33,000,000,000 a year extra to the Saudi Arabia Economy. $33Billion added to the bottom line of the Saudi Arabia Economy year in year out for the last 11 years is $363,000,000,000.00 $363 hundred billion dollars that did not exist in the economy before this course was held

A class that I travelled from Australia to Malaysia, to meet a celebrity chef Nicholas, who passed away in 2020. Took me to a market to buy my first head scarf, in Kuala Lumpur to arrive in the Jeddah airport it was pink with swarovski crystals. After taking the collection to Wimbledon Fashion Week June 2009 and travelling to France to meet a Lingerie & Swim Manufacturer that made our first bikini in just 6 days many years later in 2016 I arrived back to Malaysia on the way back and a couple of newspapers interviewed me on the experience. Harpers Bazaar Malaysia covered one of my catwalks many years later in 2016 from the Caribbean

Deep blue sea meets the landscape of an islandic skyline | Harlette Swim

Contemporary spin on animal prints, bringing to life the merge of Safari and Swim | Harlette Swim

BAZAAR EXCLUSIVE: Best Styles from International Swim Fashion Week 2016

Harpers Bazaar Malaysia – Harlette Swim

This class changed the world, it changed Wall St, it changed the London Stock Exchange, bringing increased investment to both markets. So if you think your idea is too small or your too small to make a difference. Think Again, the course I created, delivered in Saudi Arabia contributed and changed the World Economy adding the value of $33Billion year in year out for 11 years $363 hundred billion so far so good.

Braconomics 2009

Harlette Capital Ltd gifted Saudi Arabia a course for 5 days with a value today and a Luxury Wrap to a Princess that was valued £3500 in 2009 is worth with inflation £5002.44.

Heavily discounted the rate from £6000 & £5000 for each week to £1500 as it was a charity event for women to learn how to work I was requested to give another 5 days of my time. How do you value that time contribution in dollar value in 2022. £20,724.41 was gifted from Harlette to Saudi Arabia and this resulted in the country gaining $33billion new revenue year in year out to their economy just from the simple act of changing the law to make it legal for women to work and contribute to society

£1,500 in 2009 is worth £2,143.90

Gifted in Time and Donated to KSA Lingerie Training & Sales & Marketing 

£5,000 in 2009 is worth £7,146.35 today

£6,000 in 2009 is worth £8,575.62 today

After this event a piece from the collection was gifted to a Saudi Princess worth Luxury Wrap with Italian Hand Beaded Tulle and Silk Trims

£3,500 in 2009 is worth £5,002.44 today

The trip cost the Harlette Limited corporation 

£14,500 in 2009 is worth £20,724.41 today

A success fee for results on £33Billion each year for 11 years at either 1% or 5%

is a value of range $330 hundred Million per year to 1.65 billion per year & that would accumulate to $3.63billion from just a 10 day training course delivered in Saudi Arabia from Harlette

References for this Article

Saudi Arabia | Average Salary Survey 2022

Women’s Average Salary in Saudi Arabia Has Exceeded That of Men for the First Time, Report Says – 16.09.2021, Sputnik International (sputniknews.com)

Saudi Arabia: Gender pay gap widens in 2020 | Saudi – Gulf News

Saudi Arabia | Average Salary Survey 2022

Labor force, female (% of total labor force) – Saudi Arabia | Data (worldbank.org)

GASTAT: Saudi Workers Monthly Average Wage in Four Sectors: 10.238 SAR | General Authority for Statistics (stats.gov.sa)

Saudi Arabia’s female workforce grows by 282% in a year – Arabian Business

Note to the Reader

Average salary in Saudi Arabia is 261,287 SAR per year. The most typical earning is 101,265 SAR. All data are based on 1,311 salary surveys. Salaries are different between men and women. Men receive an average salary of 268,540 SAR. Women receive a salary of 203,655 SAR.

Boycotts Abound, Braconomics in Full Swing Again

Once again a trend around the world for lingerie boycotts is occurring in different parts of the world at the same time on the same product.

Braconomics is in full swing in Saudi Arabia, Israel and India, all targeting lingerie yet each targeting a different angle of the industry.

In Israel a model’s behaviour has stirred a senior official of the Israeli defence force to boycott the Passionata lingerie brand and all its product as a result of  Bar Refaeli avoiding military service and applying for non-resident status in her native Israel so she can pay less tax.

In Saudi Arabia, the creator of  the KSA lingerie campaign  Reem Asaad is celebrating the 1st year anniversary of the campaign with another boycott of stores that still have all male staff selling women’s intimate apparel. For more details of the second boycott please see the Lingerie KSA Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=20469931029&ref=mf

In India, there is a threat of a lingerie bonfire will held Monday 18th if hard-line hindu activists do not get their demands met for lingerie advertising and lingerie items will taken down and no longer visible by passers-by.

According to AFP  reported 1 day ago in BHOPAL, India , A right-wing Hindu group in a central Indian city has given shopkeepers an ultimatum to remove raunchy lingerie advertisements and mannequins that display underwear in public.

 Activists of the Sanskriti Bachao Manch (Save the Culture Forum), a hardline Hindu organisation in Madhya Pradesh’s capital city, Bhopal, have threatened to seize and burn any visible knickers or bras on Monday.

 “Three days from now if undergarments are still hanging outside, we will light a bonfire of the lingerie,” No hanging of underwear in public,  the forum’s leader Chandra Shekhar Tiwar told AFP on Friday.

 The group said in its first warning to shopkeepers on Wednesday that they should keep lingerie in boxes and only show this to customers when they asked.

 On Thursday, members of the group tore down posters advertising coffee-flavoured condoms and sexual-dysfunction therapy centres as part of their campaign to protect “traditional Indian values.”

So again the Braconomic boycott’s are a mix of agenda’s in Israel a model’s behaviour and transfer to a lingerie product’s  misalignment with the nation’s national defence policy. 

In Saudi Arabia  the fight continues to gain more ground for women for economic and political freedom. See what Reem Asaad has to say to Radio New Zealand on the topic of women and Saudi Arabia.

In India, the nations dignity is supposedly being protected with the burning of the bra to protect against indecent ideology enforced from Western advertising  campaigns.

We as the world will just have to keep watching this space as the story of Braconomics continues to unfold.

Is the Scantily Clad Lingerie Model, on the Way Out?

After lasts weeks look at Bracononics Part 2 this week we get to ask the question

Is the scantily clad Lingerie model, on the way out?

 

Headlines around the world have covered the first 26 Saudi Arabian graduates trained in the Art of Selling Lingerie. Harlette have been clearly paying attention to this story and for very good reason, as Harlette Luxury Lingerie trained them.The Star newspaper in Malaysia recently ran this article on the Saudi Arabia lingerie campaign.

Since I have returned to Sydney from Jeddah, via London and Kuala Lumpur, I regret that I have not had the contemplation time to review the events, the reactions and the future for the lingerie campaign in Saudi Arabia in the manner I wish to.

What I have noticed though, is the reaction of people, the line of questions and the general sensationalistic attitudes that people hold to the Saudi Arabian society. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be writing about sex and Saudi Arabia in the same sentence.

Yet it appears that, sex, sex appeal, and the effect of lingerie in the Saudi Arabian society is the topic most allured to in communications from reporters, friends, family and associates. I have tried to get people back on track and talk about the graciousness, the openess, the kindness and the self worth of women that I have encountered.

So instead of avoiding the issue of Sex in Saudi, by watching sex and the city reruns and a bit of Nip & Tuck. Its time to write about it, its time to face the fact, that I stood with my top off, , just in my bra for half an hour to encourage a group of women I had never met before to overcome the fear of fitting a bra, as reported in the newpaper.

Deep breathe , deep breath…This act of bravery, actually was the pivot point in gaining trust, overcoming the idea of acceptable modesty and possibly separating the issue away from piety (Taqwa) for just one moment, in the safety of the classroom environment.

In days to follow, the abaya was removed for many students, yet some refrained for I can understand that to keep it on may have kept a level of personal safety, one could remain pious, while still learning what was being demonstrated. One could feel safe for I agree one could feel very safe behind an abaya, it was like the invisible cloak, every imperfection, every flaw, everything that one could see about ones physical body was suddenly out of the equation.

Yet the decoration, and embellishment still could make a person feel the effects of a class structure etc. Indeed the idea of what is behind the abaya is infinitely more interesting than anything else in Saudi Arabia. So has Islam got it right???

Is the scantily clad lingerie model, on the way out especially given the birth rate of 3.83, Saudi is 49th highest in the world according to the CIA .When you compare this to China the 158th country in the world with a rate of 1.79. Does the world really find modesty more sexually provocative than the open canvas of page 3 glamour models and Victoria secrets Christmas parades.

Is what, the mind imagines what is under the abaya, infinitely more sexually arousing to a man than actually seeing the lingerie. Is the abaya really a sex symbol in its own right? I would love to do a study on this.

Seriously the main questions I was asked by very intelligent men, with great professions were as follows

1. Did you see a beheading?  No, but if it’s any conciliation I did visit the place that they took place in.
2. Did I see a stoning , No, remember I was there giving a lecture series in a women’s only college and outside of this, I was visiting lingerie stores , talking with male shop assistants, that had clearly never seen the likes of a customer like me before and the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce.
3. Women were mainly intrigued with how comfortable it was to wear the abaya and how it felt to wear it. It was liberating, it was freeing and you felt safe wearing the abaya.
4. I did conduct field experimentation, by wearing a knee length skirt, full jacket and my knee high boots under the abaya and I have to say it was a very crazy new experience. It felt so right but so wrong all at the same time. Although I was not doing anything wrong, I knew that there was about 2 to 3 cm of skin exposed between where the boot finished and the hem line of the skirt ended. The feeling of the abaya against my skin was somehow rather decadent.

Its not my place to quote sections of Islamic literature or highlight moral, spiritual or ethical laws, for I have never lived in Saudi Arabia, I have never been educated in Qur’an and I have never experienced anything more than the two weeks I was lecturing.

I could demonstrate my researching abilities by throwing in a reference or two, but that is not my place in this world, I will leave this to dedicated scholars that have taken the years to study the text, and make informed interpretations that will not morally offend anyone.

My place is simply to observe and report the experience that surrounded my trip related to art of selling lingerie in Saudi Arabia, the future role that women will play in this dynamic industry and the crazy folk back home that do not stop for a second to think that Saudi Arabian people are just the same as you and I.

Ok, there may be a rich tapestry of dynastic royal families, an oil well or two in a few back gardens and of course the old point about Mohammed v’s Jesus. Essentially we are the same, and whether one wears an abaya out to do a spot of shopping, and such, should not create such a sexual hysteria in the minds of our global consciousness.

Seriously people get over it, let people live their lives according to how they see fit, and France beware that banning the burka, or an abaya is only going to drive the demand and the desire to wear it in the west even higher. Prejudicial behaviour because of one’s attire is hypocritical, especially when the west set out to liberate all in the name of what good for a nation..

 

Think of how badly we have treated Punks, nuns, hippies, Jews and Muslims alike for a way that they have dressed. Even poor old Jordon, Miss Katie Price gets torn to shreds when she gives the public what they want, when she glams it up like only a glamour model knows best, forums of chat rooms, pages of tabloids critize her for her short skirts, and platform boots and shock horror a cleavage showing outfit or two.

I think society needs to work out what they want, so it’s ok to be one thing in a flat lifeless page, but to live it and breathe it is another thing. We love Victoria Secrets Christmas Parades but do you want to live with a scantily clad glamazon 24 hrs a day???

Men I believe you will answer no, why because it would require you to be the glamazon’s equal 24 hrs a day, surely you would encounter performance issues, caring issues, hair issues, and his or hers times at the tanning salon will get all muddled up.

 

With an Abaya it keeps it simple, it keeps it in the mind, it’s give society to time to plan, time to imagine and a right time and place for whatever it is that you are thinking in the first place.

So now that I have written, and thought about Sex and Saudi Arabia in the same sentence, can I get back to Sex in the City re runs…I love the Big and Carrie romance so much… for yes I am in love with a fairytale…

 After all isn’t the Abaya part of it…

The Saudi Arabia fairytale that is…..

Braconomic’s Part Two… Credibility and Pay Scales in the Lingerie Industry

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest of places, earlier this week I took part in the TimesOnline debate on WHEN DID FEMINISM LOSE THE PLOT, no laughing matter..

It was a hoot, until someone decided to indentify themselves using my name minus a few letters of my last name, which began to get annoying when people started making personal attacks to me,as a result of the comments this person was making using my name…

SO BORING… when people go for low blows and get all personal in a good old intellectual debate… YAWN….. YAWN.. anyway see the youtube video review of the times online debate and got a retweet from Times Fashion on Twitter.

 

Moving right along to the great issues that POP KULTCHA brings up… lets rewind to Sunday night , curled up in bed snug as bug in a rug on my three level high bed, which is my ode to the PRINCESS and the PEA, cause I am all about the FAIRYTALE, ladies and gentlemen.. Oh yes I live in a tower too, and have been accused of  being Rapunzel on more than one occasion. There are also no scissors allowed in my house..

Enough of me, back to the KULTCHA, not the type that is growing at the back of some of your fridges, but the type of free to air stuff found on your TV and how it impacts BRACONOMICS.

Watching late night TV is a rareity for me, but somehow I stumbled upon Las Vegas, and a stripper stike, like you do… Having just taken part of a debate on whether Feminism had lost the plot, and why women strip and get paid well, and can support a family etc vs teachers that are struggling to meet ends meet.

I just had to keep watching for research purposes, anyway the crux of the episode rested on the success of the campaign with one word CREDIBILITY, strippers had none, and therefore how could they strike effectively and demand to be treated equally and demand benefits, a union etc.

So CREDIBILITY was gained at the closing scene by a political candidate, that had stripped her way through law school and was now out and proud and ready to run the race to back the women that strip in Las Vegas in their bid for benefits enjoyed by the rest of the working class population of  Las Vegas enjoyed.

So if we look at the Lingerie Industry and Braconomics, those that TEACH eg the trained fitters in the retail shops, get paid under £10 pounds an hour. Those that DO, the ladies at Stringfellows and Spearmint Rhino that are paid a significant percentage  more an hour, as they are intimately more attached to the product so to speak… They are doing the road test of the industry really.

Dare I bring up the bread and butter earners, the white collar workers, the highest spenders of the industry, the escorts, the courtesans and the Tuesday to Thursday paid wives that reside in the most comfortable of the city’s and mayfair’s hotel rooms.

They earn hundreds and thousands of pounds more an hour!!!!

But  wait there is MORE , there is a breed that sets its self apart from everyone in the industry and this is based on CREDIBILITY, which is the promise, those that actually DO DELIVER for a full time job eg strip or escort, rarely get rewarded in any way shape or form in the manner that those that PROMISE TO DO.

The gatekeepers of the industry, those that promise everything and never deliver anything other than air kisses on our TV’s, magazines or are the face’s of lingerie brands are being paid up to $20 million for a campaign or parade… So the more CREDIBILITY you have the higher your pay scale is in the lingerie industry.

But its not all about beauty, the brains behind the industry also get paid  in an scale that is a bit wild and wacky but that story we will save for a later day

Here endth the 2nd lesson on Braconomics part two..

UK Bra Tax WAR leads to DD Day While Sweden Follows Saudi Lingerie Campaign

Last week was an interesting week, the Saudi Lingerie campaign got an unexpected article in a Swedish newspaper and I got a new title Australiensiska Underklädesexperten. The campaign headed up by economics lecturer Reem Assad, has expanded beyond just lingerie to include the retail industry and the topic of Women at Work. 

http://sydsvenskan.se/varlden/article429631/Hon-leder-behaupproret.html 

Back on English Soil I have decided to create a word BRACONOMICS™ to describe this NEW FURY that has  in-sighted another group of women on facebook escalate the issue of £2 bra tax that M&S imposed on bigger cupped Bra’s. The Sun newspaper and page 3 girls got behind the campaign, to ensure that large breasted women were not discriminated against with increased to the price of their bra’s.

Becky Mount and Becki Williams established the busts for justice campaign on Facebook to raise concern about this issue and appeared on GMTV. 

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fsol%2Fhomepage%2Ffeatures%2Farticle2418288.ece#/group.php?gid=18589103563&ref=mf

UK Media personality ULRIKA JONSSON joined the debate with her article in the Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1178166/Youve-huge-boob-M-S-Charging-2-extra-bigger-bras-discrimination-says-ULRIKA-JONSSON.htmlThe

Sun claimed victory in their war against the bra tax and declared a DD Day to celebrate 64 years after VE Day.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/article2418288.ece

Its been over 30 years since women began burning bra’s to establish themselves in the community and now in the 21st century we see a resurgence of the bra and the impact it is having on women in society again.

1. The size of the bra
2. The cost of the bra
3. The service one receives when purchasing a bra 

Are all key elements in BRACONOMICS™.

One wonders though is the UK really safe from further attacks in BRACONOMICS™ when the front line defence is left to Page Three Girls and a Newspaper that M&S advertises in? I think we should all keep watch on this debate