Shopping for clothes was never a pleasant experience for Anda Chaudhry, especially when she used to don a size 20 a couple of years ago.
Clothes in Singapore could never fit her right — they were either too tight or too loose in all the wrong places. Even if she did find something that could fit, they were mostly out of budget.
This was why she generally refrained going to physical stores to shop for clothes, until she was dragged to a departmental store by a friend when they were on vacation in Australia.
Despite having minimal expectations, Anda was pleasantly surprised when she easily found garments that could actually fit her. “For the first time, I wasn’t the biggest size in the shop. I didn’t cry in the fitting room because I felt horrible about myself,” she candidly shared.
Wanting to bring back that experience to Singapore, the 27-year-old started up WearBums, an all-size inclusive clothing line back in 2021.
Juggling three businesses while holding a full-time job
WearBums is not Anda’s first business venture. On top of being a beauty influencer, she’s also the founder of two other businesses: Araes Nails and BumOutSpace.
Aeras Nails offers Muslim-friendly nail lacquer that are water permeable, while BumOutSpace is an affordable indoor ‘glamping’ (a word that was coined by combining “glamorous” and “camping”) business that lets you watch movies and hang out with friends.
While working as a financial advisor since 2018, the serial entrepreneur has also been doing makeup as a side job for 10 years. During this time, she launched several businesses, such as WearBums, all while maintaining her full-time job.
However, managing three businesses alongside a demanding career proved to be challenging for her, and eventually took a toll. Therefore, in 2021, she made the decision to quit her job and fully dedicate her attention to her entrepreneurial ventures.
She has since hired a small team to manage her businesses, so she can spend more time growing them instead of merely ensuring they are sustainable.
WearBums faced many challenges in its early days
WearBums provides sizes up to 4XL and also caters to petite sizes up to 3XS, as Anda believes that this demographic has a hard time finding suitable clothes as well.
However, she revealed that the homegrown clothing brand faced many challenges in its early days, including finding a supplier who was willing to cater to plus-size clothing.
It was hard to get a supplier as nobody wanted do plus-size clothing, due to the fact it required more cloth.
– Anda Chaudhry, founder of WearBums
It took some convincing to find the “right supplier” and Anda eventually settled with one that was more costly, but it was “a risk [she] had to take” to provide comfortable and inclusive clothing for her customers.
With no background in fashion, Anda had to learn everything from scratch as well. She admitted that it was purely trial and error in the beginning.
To gather information on the challenges that people in Singapore face when shopping for clothes, she turned to her sizeable audience on Instagram and TikTok, which amounted to approximately 30,000 followers on each platform.
Many of her followers lamented that their pants — in particular, jeans — were too loose at the waist, yet they are tight at the hips. “All of these feedback helped create WearBums,” she said.
They broke even at launch
Despite facing these obstacles, WearBums was able to break even on its launch date, thanks to the overwhelming support of its customers.
The brand has also seen success in its physical outlet at Syed Alwi Road, which was launched six months after its online store was set up. “Customers wanted to come down and try our items, so we thought it would be a good idea,” she said.
She added that these successes can be attributed to WearBum’s commitment to branding and customer experience, which helped them grow organically through word of mouth and positive customer feedback.
We focused mainly on customers’ experience, and our whole brand grew by customers’ support and word of mouth — they really love Wearbums and would get our items in all colours! When we had small launches for customers, the support was also always amazing.
– Anda Chaudhry, founder of WearBums
WearBums plans to expand to Malaysia and Australia
Looking forward, WearBums is looking to introduce more casual and work basic garments as well as a fitness line with sizes up to 6XL, while focusing fully on quality.
We want to change the meaning of sustainable. A lot of people think it’s just [about] using better packaging, but truth be told, its making a garment your customer can wear on repeat and would keep for years.
– Anda Chaudhry, founder of WearBums
Besides that, Anda shared that an expansion to Malaysia and Australia is also in the pipeline. Meanwhile, the brand is focusing on holding pop-up stores in these locations to increase brand awareness.
Ultimately, Anda wants her customers to be reminded that they look their best when they’re comfortable and confident — “and that means dressing in WearBums”.
Featured Image Credit: WearBums
