At the beginning of August, I took my second-ever trip to New York City and the Curve NY trade show for lingerie, swimwear, and intimate apparel. The Spring/Summer show is the largest event of its kind in North America, and this year featured three days of market meetings, industry events, and browsing over 150 participating brands. It’s a lot to take in! Last year was my first Curve experience, and I definitely went into this year with a few lessons under my belt.

For starters, my partner Ben and I added an extra day in Manhattan on each end of our itinerary. The additional day at the beginning of the trip allowed us to drop in on a spin-off trade show in the Flatiron District, the Evolution Concept Show. Evolution mainly features premium and luxury indie lingerie and sleepwear brands. There were some absolutely stunning pieces on display from labels like Bordelle, Studio Pia, Carol Coelho, and Shell Belle Couture. Unfortunately, these brands probably won’t be coming to Grail anytime soon, since their wares can cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. I got to swoon over some gorgeous $3,500 embroidered silk kimonos from Josie Natori, but that’s the closest I will likely get to one in a while.

Here we are, arriving at the Evolution show completely drenched in sweat after trekking it over from Hudson Yards. Very chic. 😆 We walked almost everywhere. My other important takeaways from last year were to bring comfortable shoes and slip shorts to save my poor thighs.

The next two days were completely devoted to Curve. Brands typically have booths set up where you can take a peek at their products, or you can make an appointment to sit down with brand sales representatives to go into more detail. In 2023, I made appointments with pretty much all of our brand reps. It was my first time meeting many of them in person, rather than just communicating through email, phone calls, and Zoom. This time around, I tried to streamline my schedule a little bit. I had a chance to catch up with all of Grail’s core vendors and many of our smaller brands as well. These meetings allow us to view the new styles and variants that will be released during the upcoming season, Spring/Summer 2025 in this case. For limited edition colors and styles, we can then submit pre-orders to secure stock of these new items once they’re released. All of the items below will be making an appearance at Grail in the future.

I met with a couple of potential new-to-us brands as well. I’ll be keeping an eye on some of them for the future, but we went ahead and opened a Curvy Kate account at the show.

A lot of Curve is also devoted to networking. Besides brand reps, designers, and other industry figures, it’s a great chance to connect with other independent lingerie store owners and their teams. Here I am with Courtney Killpack, owner of Bra Fittings by Court north of Salt Lake City, and Judy Masucci, owner of Levana Bratique near Pittsburgh. Both are part of a great community of fitting boutique owners that I stumbled into back before I opened. This group shares all sorts of info & advice and has been a huge help to me at every step of my journey in this business.

The trip wasn’t all work, though. My favorite thing to do in Manhattan is… explore Manhattan. I love this place. I’m usually crowd-averse, somewhat anxious, and prone to sensory overload. New York City seems like the last place on Earth I’d want to be. Yet somehow, I feel strangely at home here. Maybe it’s partly because there’s art everywhere you look:

The architecture is fascinating, and the scale of it just defies the imagination:

And there is something bizarre and completely unexpected around every turn:

My spirits were only slightly dampened by the fact that our flight home had to be cancelled due to Tropical Storm Debby. We spent a night on the floor at LaGuardia. Good times.

I can’t wait to show you all the new bras, lingerie, and swimwear we ordered at Curve. 😊 Maybe next year, I’ll be able to bring more of the Grail team along.