The emotional upheaval of breast cancer can be a difficult struggle, and treatment can leave sufferers feeling low and unsexy, particularly for those women who may have had a mastectomy. Enter Kim Downes, the founder of the beautiful Oops and Downes lingerie boutique, who is on a mission to make mastectomy lingerie the most gorgeous around.

 What made you decide to open the store up in Leeds?

“Twelve years ago when I was living here and there was a gap in the market, I decided to go for it. We have a history of breast cancer in my family. When I decided that I wanted to open a shop, I wanted a lingerie shop because it’s a passion, I like underwear!

But I wanted to specialise in mastectomy lingerie, this was close to my heart. I made some enquiries at hospitals and started to ask people if they’d be interested and that’s how it kicked off really.

I also went to clinics just as the shop was opening and I went into the hospitals and did the measuring along with the girls that do the prosthetics fittings and that’s how it all evolved. There was nothing for these women 12 years ago in Leeds and the surrounding areas - there were no shops at all, everything was mail order.

 So it was important to be able to go into a shop and have a proper fitting and some human interaction? 

“Exactly, so I found that it worked for me as well because I wanted to have a shop, and I thought – if it was me I would want to go to a shop and get back to some normality. When I visited the clinics the only option for these women at that point was to buy online and by mail order. They need to be measured and they need to be able to get back to normality. Normality is being able to into a shop and being able to buy underwear that fits. It’s bit part of being feminine again after you’ve had breast surgery.

 Did you find sourcing products and lingerie lines an obstacle? 

For the two years that I was doing my homework before I opened, I visited and went out to places like Harrogate and London and went to various exhibitions. A lady who has since become a very good friend owns a lingerie shop in Derby, and she got me some contacts and through her I could get into trade shows. So for 2 years I did a lot of leg work and put everything together so that I knew that when I did set up I would be able to get it 100 per cent right. You can’t go in half hearted, it’s a lot of work and it’s a sensitive issue.

 Do you find you get a lot of customers coming into the shop from outside the area? 

We have people coming in from Ireland, they come in from Scotland, from down South. I’ve had customers coming in from Spain, customers that have moved from America.

 Do you think about yourself as a specialised retailer? 

I never wanted it to be a specialised shop. I think most women would want to go into a normal, lovely lingerie shop so that Joe public from the outside wouldn’t know that that particular lady was coming in because she’s had a mastectomy. The people that come into my shop are a mixture between retail and mastectomy and from the outside no-one would know. The reputation that we’ve got now I think precedes us, and that’s because we’ve all worked hard to get to this point. I think people from the outside see it as a retail lingerie shop.

It’s a bit like Pandora’s box, we don’t just do beautiful lingerie for younger ladies, we carry stock that caters for people that are a lot older as well, for more senior people. I wanted it to be quite a mixture of things as well, so that not just retail ladies but mastectomy ladies as well could come in and feel quite comfortable and it actually works really well, simply because they can come in and be comfortable, bring their friends or their husband and get back to normality and buy some nice underwear, whether that be retail, or specialist lingerie.

 Leeds is becoming quite an image conscious city, do find this had helped your market? 

I think it’s grown. I never wanted to take the shop into Leeds City Centre, simply on the business side of things, especially when we were only small, not everyone wants to go into the city. When I started 12 years ago, it worked for me being on the outskirts because we have some lovely, lovely shops. Some people struggle to get into Leeds whereas they can come to the suburbs and there’s some lovely ladies dress shops, shoe shops, cafes.

 You get that boutique-esque vibe that makes the shopping experience more exclusive and special- something you wouldn’t get on the high street with the masses? 

Yes, and because we have to spend time with our clients. Whether it’s someone who’s come in for a retail bra and needs measuring – we do a bit of training with them as well, most women are in the wrong bra or don’t know what suits their shape – they’ll come in and say ‘this isn’t quite right’ but they don’ know why it’s not right. We go through the certain features and benefits of different styles that suit them. We show them what suits their shape. At the end of the day it’s good fun – we get customers going out the door who are really happy.

 And what about the stories that many women are wearing and incorrectly sized bra without knowing it? 

Every year things change in our bodies. People might have put weight on or might lose weight, things completely and utterly change. It’s important that people are measured once a year.

Think about shoes you put on your feet: you wouldn’t walk around in ill-fitting shoes, so why walk around in an ill-fitting bra? At the end of the day the only thing that’s doing any work is the breast tissue muscle and by the time you get to my age (which I won’t give away!), if you don’t wear a good fitting bra you’re going to end up with floppy boobs as you get older so your underwear is really the most important thing you put on every day; whatever you put over the top will only look good if your underwear is right. The foundation has got to be right.

 And how important is customer service to you? 

When people do come to the shop, whether a mastectomy lady or a retail lady, they’re all given the same level of service. This business is built on service and we do spend time with ladies and it is always with a lot of discretion. We do take time with people one to one, and we do take appointments and everyone who comes into the shop is important.

It is a bit like Pandora’s box - we’re not just a fashion orientated shop, we have corsetry type of lingerie as well. The triumph Doreen which is more for the elderly ladies with a big bust. We specialise in large cup sizes, in swimwear as well simply because the average woman these days is a D-cup We get people coming in saying ‘oh my god look how big these bras are!’ and that’s because the average size is a d-cup.

A lot of the young girls who come in have a small back with a big bust. With girls getting taller yet still very slim; I think you’ll find that over the next few years the A’s and B’s are going to be manufactured less in comparison to the bigger sizes.

For me, it’s about service and doing something that’s a bit different from what’s in Leeds.

 Tell us about how you picked your gorgeous shop interior. 

It’s important to get away from the high street which is so generic and you come into a luxury shop with luxurious changing rooms.

It’s minimalistic as well, I can’t stand junk! We’re having a sale in a couple of weeks, but what goes into the sales is what we’ve had in the shop that season and the season before. It’s not stock we’ve dragged out from the back of the store room. It’s about giving something back to the customers who have been loyal to you.. It’s important that a lady can come and not be amassed with everything and be able to see the wood for the trees!

 So what about your service for ladies further a field? 

We do a mail order catalogue as well and Paul has built a retail website well this year, which is something we’re actively looking at progressing over the next year. It’s an add on because more and more people are using internet shopping, but it’s difficult.

Because we buy certain styles and colours from manufacturers, we want the pictures for the specific lines that we’ve bought; sometimes the promo pictures are in different colours, which is misleading for the customer as they like to think they’re buying what they see in the picture which is what we don’t want. We’ve tried to design the website to be as clear and uncluttered as the shop.

It’s a good service to have; once ladies have been fitted in the shop and know what they are looking for, they can then use the internet, especially as many of the customers aren’t local.

 And how do you feel about branching out and putting your brand in the hands of other staff? 

“Because of the sensitivity of what we do, it’s getting the right staff, I would need three or four of me and then get more of the girls who work for me now who are very good and very good with the ladies. Those sort of girls are very hard to find. We get ladies coming in and we tell them they’re not the size they thought they were and they’re devastated sometimes. You want to tell them to cut the label out of the back of the bra and not worry about it because at the end of the day that’s what they were when they first walked in but you get people who are quite traumatized by the experience so the girls are good at making people feel marvellous when they leave the shop.

 Do you feel that you can help with the emotional side of cancer? 

We’re not councillors, but it has a lot to do with what we do. We have people coming in who are tearful on the mastectomy side of it and we have to help them and encourage them as they go out. If we can’t help them we contact the breast care nurses and let them know we’ve had a lady not feeling too good in herself. And the breast care nurses sometimes miss that, which is quite easy to do with all the patients they have.

It’s a major step for all these ladies who come in; it’s another stepping stone when they come to see us, so we try and make it as pleasant as possible for them so that when they go out feeling a million dollars they can come back to us, or they can go somewhere else and feel quite confident. We should help each other to feel like that.