These entrepreneurs want to solve the hassle of lingerie shopping for women

Christina, Nicola Isabel, started Kenzwoman after experiencing several personal frustrations during lingerie shopping

The intimate apparel industry in the Middle East is undermined by conservative attitudes towards women, but that doesn’t mean consumers desire these products any less than their western counterparts.

For example, until 2012, lingerie stores in Saudi Arabia were almost exclusively staffed by men.



As a result women never felt comfortable discussing underwear preferences or sizes. It took aroyal decree by the Saudi king to ban men from working in these stores, finally ending decades of awkwardness and giving women some much needed relief.

But the problem still persists. According to Christina Ganim, co-founder of online lingerie marketplace Kenzwoman, there’s still a huge gap between what women want and what is available in markets across the Middle East.

Nearly 80 per cent of women still wear bras that do not fit properly, she says. Not only does this affect the fit of everyday clothing, but it can also cause back pain and significant discomfort.

Kenz launched in October 2015 and is based in Ramallah, Palestine. Christina, along with her co-founder Nicola Isabel, started the company after experiencing several personal frustrations when it came to lingerie shopping.

“We could never find what we were looking for, either it never fit properly or the selection was limited or the quality was terrible. We thought, why not start a website that could be the one-stop-shop for bras in the Middle East and bring quality undergarments to the region,” she adds.

From games to bras

Christina and Nicola both have a prior background in tech, having worked as project managers at a mobility solutions startup in Ramallah prior to launching the venture. Christina, who graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies, says she also took online courses to teach herself how to publish games on app stores.

These games continue to get downloads and earn her revenue, but she wanted to do something she was “more passionate about.” Hence the pivot to lingerie ecommerce.



The Kenz site is entirely in Arabic but Christina says that’s a business decision taken by the team.

“Our goal behind creating Kenz was to create content in Arabic around the subject of lingerie. This is why our website is in Arabic. We are focused on targeting Arabic speakers who are women, as there are limited resources available to them online in Arabic when it comes to lingerie,” she explains.

The idea is to build a community where women will feel comfortable speaking up and sharing experiences.

Kenz remains bootstrapped but the team is now actively hunting for investors to help it scale. Christina doesn’t share figures related to gross merchandise value (GMV), but does say that it has grown between 10-15 per cent month-on-month since launch.

The site operates as a curated marketplace. It does not hold any inventory or manufacture its own in-house products. Some of the brands currently online are Le Mystere, Ongossamer, Nubian Skin, Kiss Kill, and Montelle.

Whenever an order is placed, the partner brand ships it to a fulfilment center in Dubai. Then the products are dispatched to their specific addresses. This strategy is ostensibly to cater to the wider Middle East, in particular the Gulf Arab countries which Christina says is their target market.

“We see a huge potential in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). They have established payment gateways and are used to shopping online, so it was only natural for us to focus on this part of the Middle East first,” explains Christina.



Ecommerce is certainly on the upswing in this part of Asia. Rocket Internet-backed Wadi raised US$67 million in series A funding recently. That was topped by its chief rival Souqannouncing a US$275 million round. Uber has said that over 80 per cent of ride requests in Saudi Arabia are from women.

And Christina certainly seems to think that tech can help women in the region overcome some of the traditional barriers they’ve had to face.

“Kenz is run by women, for women, and we’re impacting lives because we are creating a space where women will feel comfortable talking about their bra concerns and trust that we’re providing them with the highest quality products on the market.”

This article originally appeared on Tech in Asia