We recently connected with April Buchanan and have shared our conversation below.
April, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
In my former life, as I now refer to it, I had the honor of being a law enforcement officer. Yes, you read that right. My career prior to opening The Perky Lady, an expert bra fitting and lingerie boutique that is thriving and uplifting beautiful humans on the daily . . . was a cop. I set out with very altruistic goals. I wanted to help, to better my community, and be a force of positive change. I wanted to be there to stand up and protect when someone else couldn’t. However, the job is hard. Very hard. You see the worst of the worst. You are put in dangerous situations. You experience not only your trauma but trauma through every person you encounter on the calls that you take. It takes a toll and affects all parts of you and seeps into the rest of the parts of your life.
Law enforcement has a very regimented dress code that left no room for individuality or uniqueness. There are clear reasons for that. However, I felt stifled. Because I wasn’t able to express myself on the outside of my uniform, I took control of what I could wear under it. I had always enjoyed lingerie for the beauty and art that it is but with this new lens I started to see it as more than just beauty, it now becomes empowering. It soothed me to feel like I had some sort of control. It grounded me in my body. I felt like a rebel and for me, that was a little freeing. That’s where the inspiration for our tagline “Magnify the woman within” came.
One fateful day, my life changed. In responding to a call I was physically assaulted by a subject. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for law enforcement to be physically assaulted in the legal course of their duties, but not everyone is lucky enough to go home to their families at the end of the day. Some are taken forever. But that day . . . that day I was one of the lucky ones. It would take years of recovery for me to physically, psychologically, and emotionally recover. But I did. And that was the true start of my journey.
At some point during my therapy and recovery, I was told I wasn’t going to be able to return to that type of work. While I struggled with that for some time, I took the time to heal. During that time, I was learning how to read again. It was hard. I decided I would use reading material that I enjoyed. So, I read about lingerie. That lead to me incorporating lingerie into other parts of my healing process. That grounded feeling that I had forgotten all about, was starting to return. Feeling safe in my own body again. Comfortable in my skin for the first time in my entire life. That was a revelation. Then I decided to get a bra fitting. When I first started wearing bras when I was very young, I innately knew they weren’t fitting right. I had bra fittings before and always left wanting. Wanting a better fit, better options, and overall a better experience. But what was I going to do? This was all there was. This latest bra fitting during my recovery was no better. However, I was seeing it through a different lens. Looking back, I was already a different person. I wasn’t going to settle anymore. With friends who didn’t respect my time, people who didn’t respect my boundaries, and certainly not a bra that was either going to be painful for no reason or at best an annoyance. I wanted more. Better options, better fit, and a better experience. I set to work and The Perky Lady was born!
Everyone deserves to feel beautiful and to know they are enough just for being themselves. I think everyone, including myself, can relate to being told that they aren’t good enough, aren’t pretty enough, aren’t “Something”. That is reinforced when you find only ill-fitting, cheap, uninspiring, and unsupportive bra and lingerie options. Enough is enough! That’s why we make sure at The Perky Lady we focus on fit, not sizes. We want the message to be loud and clear that your body matters, that the way something feels matters, not some number on a tag. No one should suffer as I did for so long to be validated.
For all those reasons we strive to provide a warm friendly and welcoming environment with a very personalized experience. We include pieces that will fit most every body that walks through the door not some prescribed body size or shape. With around 200 unique bra sizes alone, coupled with our unique vision and mission our buying process and what we bring in for our clients is very curated. We provide education and fit services, so you aren’t left exhausted and traumatized. We make bra and lingerie shopping fun
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
At the time of this interview, I have just recently celebrated a big birthday. I can honestly say I am so grateful of where I am in life. I live in Apex, NC where my business is. My amazing husband and son love to get out and enjoy all the south has to offer. Acceptance of myself and my body has not come easy for me as it doesn’t for most people. Being in a bigger body, a bigger athletic body, a curvy body someone always had a comment for me about what they thought about me. No one ever thought to keep it to themselves. I’ve always loved lingerie and I started dabbling and experimenting with it early in my teens. It never fit right. It wasn’t every made well. It never fit with what I wanted it to be, and I was constantly getting told in words and images that it wasn’t accessible for me. While my family sees me as a beautiful, desirable, force of a woman, I haven’t always shared that view. Other people’s comments, the media, and numerous failed shopping experiences constantly told me otherwise. A life altering catalyst is ultimately what pushed me into lingerie and small business and how The Perky Lady came to be.
Big birthday’s can tend to make us reflect and take stock of just how far we have come. The desire, awareness, life experience, and work to get to the point where I can accept myself and my body in whatever state it is in is absolutely freeing. This freedom is so empowering to me, and I hope I can bring that to my clients through The Perky Lady every day. It is not about loving yourself when you finally drop or gain that weight. It is not when you accomplish whatever goal you have. It happens now. In the journey. That is where life happens for you. I have used lingerie as a tool in my toolbox to get me there. Lingerie isn’t about some narrow scope society pushed about sex or one and only way to be sexy. It isn’t some scantily cheap black lace whatever. It is functional, wearable art, that you use as a medium to express yourself. To magnify a mood, feeling, or whatever you please. Whatever style, material, color, cut, fit, etc. that makes you feel your best. You get to define that. Think outside the box!
You are more than just a size, more than a number. You are a unique individual that is worth more than just letting someone else define you as a size and a number. Our expertly curated selections are nothing without a proper fit. Our Perky Lady experience includes custom fittings with our experts who listen to your wants and helps you shop our selections with your body’s unique fit requirements in mind. Having someone on your side making this intimate experience fun and empowering makes all the difference! We encourage people to express themselves and be individuals who stand out; whether they are wearing their lingerie underneath just for themselves or as outerwear. We mean it when we say we want our clients to “magnify the woman within”. It’s not just a tagline its our mission.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Authenticity. At The Perky Lady, our team eats, sleeps and breathes lingerie and body positivity. Our mission drives every decision we make. Not for the sake of a marketing campaign, but because we live it. People are searching for a connection and something real in this social media heavy digital world. We bring back the real human experience. People are standing vulnerable in a fitting room with a stranger and that instant connection and feeling of safety, of being understood and heard is vitally important and why we have been so successful in growing our clientele. Our clients truly have a best friend in their fitting room with them. There isn’t a sales pitch, just someone helping you look and feel your best in a way that you get to define. That is empowerment and that is what we love to do.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I think this is a great question. It can be easy when you lead a business to think that everyone is ready to accept and align with your company’s mission and values. You believe in what your business does and the mission. The amazing team you lead believes in it too. We have to learn that sometimes people aren’t ready or open for change. A differing message that challenges the norm can be scary for some. Educating people on lingerie and how to utilize it as a very personalized tool for freedom and empowerment, challenges most people’s construct of it being about exclusivity and sexual objectification. Further explaining there isn’t one size you can simply replicate all the time is the icing on the cake. If someone understands and really internalizes that then we know they get it.
Some still find lingerie and self-expression to be smutty, salacious and inappropriate. Lingerie encompasses all manner of undergarments not just what we as Americans have been exposed to in movies and ads. It encompasses bras and underwear that we all wear daily. Lingerie is not inherently sexy. Sexy is what you determine it to be, if that is even your goal. People who align with your message will get it and people who do not will fall away. Either way it is ok. You have to do what speaks to your heart.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://perkyladyunderthings.com/
- Instagram: @perkyladylingerie
- Facebook: @perkyladyudnerthings
- Twitter: @The_Perky_Lady
Image Credits
Ramie of Ethreal Boudoir & Drop of Golden Sun Photography