Celebrity customers are among many folk snapping up shapewear and lingerie from an Isle of Man company. Millions of TV viewers recently saw one of Esbelt’s products featured on ITV’s popular This Morning show with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.
UK and Ireland director Peter Oldham said: ‘We are delighted to have been included in the programme. The response has been phenomenal.’
‘We have always been confident in the lingerie range and see this as another way to get this amazing product to the consumer.’
The TV coup on ITV’s flagship day time show coincides with a major marketing offensive by the company which is based in Mr Oldham’s house in Majestic Drive, Onchan.
The office has been built on top of the existing house and commands spectacular views over the sea.
Mr Oldham, an entrepreneur, said he was delighted with the television coverage which saw him travel down to London on a whistlestop dash with some of the Esbelt products. He watched from the wings as celebrity stylist Faye Sawyer extolled the virtues of the Esbelt corset.
According to the company, Faye has used Esbelt to reshape the figures of many celebrities. Despite being pressed by Business News, Mr Oldham and recently- appointed sales and marketing manager Ann Hartley remained tightlipped on who their celebrity customers are. But the company does acknowledge in its own promotional booklet that Faye Sawyer has ‘used Esbelt to reshape the figures of many X Factor contestants over the years, the contestants and judges on BBC’s Over the Rainbow and the contestants of the dating show Take Me Out on ITV.’ Gok Wan has also praised the Esbelt.
Faye says Esbelt helps to ‘sculpt your figure and hold in your tummy, making you look a lot slimmer. I’m always using them on on my clie nts. So they are a definite lingerie staple.’
Peter, 53, has been running Esbelt for more than four years. The products are manufactured in Sao Paulo, Brazil and are shipped to a warehouse in the Isle of Man.
Ann Hartley said Esbelt distributes the products, which range in price between £27 and £78 to some big name suppliers in the UK and Ireland including Marisota, Fashion World, Simply Be and Simply Yours.
Mr Oldham lives with his partner Essie Montgomery and children Saffron, 12, and Carmen, eight. Going to work involves going up one flight of
stairs to the office. Essie is sales director for another separate company called Uppercup which is also an online retailer for the Esbelt range.
She occupies one half of the office at her desk while Peter works in the other.
It’s a perfect working arrangement and the couple are blessed with superb views from the office window. Peter said: ‘I could mention but I won’t that there are lots of household names who have used the Esbelt.
‘Faye, who is the fashion specialist on This Morning, has described the Esbelt as an essential part of her kit. I can’t say whether she wears it herself.’
Ann Hartley acknowledged that the brand Esbelt is ‘certainly one of the least known brands here in the Isle of Man’. But there are plans to change that.
She said: ‘It is shapewear or bodywear depending on where you come from in the world. Esbelt has actually been available for a number of years but what we have done is brought it into the UK and Peter has headed up the company.’
Peter said Esbelt started in Brazil about 45 years ago and was launched in Europe about 10 years ago.
He set up Esbelt UK about four years ago to deal in distributing Esbelt products in the UK and Ireland.
‘We have been very successful in the UK. We have all the stock here in the island and we are in fact relaunching Esbelt over the next couple of months.
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