Ann Summers gave staff body cams. How can I protect my staff from sexual harassment if I run an underwear or swimwear business?

If you sell underwear or swimwear, your team faces more abuse than almost any other retail staff. Protecting them takes a mix of physical measures (body cams, de-escalation training, removing public phone numbers) and digital ones - including putting a specialist AI in front of your customer service inbox so the worst messages never reach a human. Here's what actually works, and what I learned watching Ann Summers' CEO talk about it.

This April (year 2026 that is!), I was in the audience at the Retail Technology Show in London when Maria Hollins, CEO of Ann Summers, spoke about protecting her retail teams. I even got to ask her a question from the floor. But it was one line of hers that has stayed with me since:

"Some of our team are seen as easy targets because of what we sell."

Let that sink in. A British retailer selling lingerie and intimate products has had to issue body-worn cameras to its shop floor teams - not for shoplifting first and foremost, but because the abuse its (largely female) staff face is worse than in most of retail. Hollins told the room that Ann Summers stores no longer publish their phone numbers online, because so many were receiving multiple harassing calls a week. Teams are given de-escalation training. They are taught when to walk away.

The results were telling. Across three flagship stores (Edinburgh, London Oxford Street, Nottingham), Ann Summers recorded a 42% reduction in staff safety incidents during its eight-week body cam trial, with zero customer complaints about the cameras. The company has since rolled them out to 23 stores. Customers, Hollins said, "actually had empathy" for the staff wearing them.

I'm glad the cameras work. I'm furious they're needed.

Sexual harassment in lingerie retail isn't rare - it's routine
If you work in intimate apparel, none of this surprises you. The word "lingerie" alone seems to give a certain type of person permission to behave in ways they never would at a phone shop. The data backs this up across UK retail:

According to the BRC Crime Report 2026, retail workers face around 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse every single day - down from 2,000 the year before, but still roughly 3.5 times pre-pandemic levels. That includes 118 daily incidents of physical violence and 36 involving a weapon.

Research by law firm Foot Anstey found that one in ten retail workers (11%) has experienced inappropriate touching of a sexual nature in their current role - around 319,000 people. Nearly half (47%) have heard sexual or otherwise offensive language at work, and 78% of the aggression came from customers.

A TUC poll found that 2 in 3 young women have experienced sexual harassment, bullying or verbal abuse at work. Retail and hospitality - customer-facing, young, female-skewed workforces - sit right in the danger zone.

Now layer "intimate products" on top of all that. Lingerie customer service teams don't just get the standard retail abuse. They get the explicit "enquiries." The men who ring the fitting room line for reasons that have nothing to do with bras. The live chat messages at 11pm that start with a sizing question and end somewhere no employee should have to read. Anyone who has managed a lingerie brand's inbox, DMs or phone line knows exactly what I'm describing. We just don't talk about it publicly, because it's awkward and it doesn't sell knickers.

Ann Summers talking about it openly matters. It moves the problem from "unfortunate cost of the job" to "operational risk that boards have to own." And under the UK's Worker Protection Act, employers now have a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff - including harassment from customers.

Where AI fits in (and where it doesn't)

When I started building Brarista, AI was such a foreign concept to most consumers we spoke to that convincing people to trust it was placed as the highest commercial risk in every product meeting we had. Six years on, the conversation has flipped. Now the question I get from lingerie brands is: what can AI take off my team's plate?

Here's the answer nobody puts in a pitch deck: AI can take the abuse.

A body cam protects a fitter on the shop floor. But your digital front line - live chat, product page questions, the sizing inbox - is exposed in a different way. That's where a specialist AI layer changes the equation:

AI absorbs the messages no human should have to read. When Brarista sits on a lingerie brand's site handling fitting conversations, the 11pm explicit message lands on software, not on a 22-year-old customer service assistant. The AI doesn't get harassed home. It doesn't dread opening the inbox. It shuts the conversation down, and your team never sees it.

AI filters genuine shoppers from bad actors. The overwhelming majority of people asking intimate questions are exactly who you'd hope: someone embarrassed about sizing, someone shopping post-surgery, someone buying their first bra. A chatbot trained by professional bra fitters (ours is trained on 20,000+ professional fitting records) answers those questions with real expertise - and recognises when a conversation isn't a fitting conversation at all.

AI creates a record. Just as body cams changed behaviour in store because people knew they were on camera, digital abuse handled by AI is logged, patterned and reportable. That's evidence for your safeguarding processes, and for your Worker Protection Act compliance.

And crucially: your human fitters stay for the humans who deserve them. This isn't about replacing customer service teams. It's about routing. Genuine complex cases still reach your people - minus the pile of abuse they'd otherwise have to wade through to find them.

The intimate wear industry is finally catching up on this (I know, only took 6 years or so). Ann Summers put cameras on its people. The next step is putting a specialist AI in front of them.

FAQ

How common is sexual harassment of customer service staff in lingerie retail? Very. Across UK retail, 11% of workers report inappropriate sexual touching and 47% have heard sexual or offensive language at work; 78% of aggression comes from customers. Lingerie retail sits at the sharp end - Ann Summers' CEO has said abuse of her staff is worse than at most retailers because "some of our team are seen as easy targets because of what we sell."

Why did Ann Summers give staff body cameras? Following rising aggression, intimidation and harassment of store teams, Ann Summers trialled body-worn cameras in three stores in early 2026. Safety incidents fell 42% in eight weeks with zero customer complaints, and the cameras have been rolled out to 23 stores.

Can AI protect lingerie customer service teams from harassment? Online, yes - a specialist AI fitting assistant can act as the first line for intimate questions, absorbing and shutting down abusive messages before they ever reach a human, while logging incidents and escalating genuine customers to real fitters.

About Brarista

Brarista is the world's first AI-powered bra fitting chatbot platform designed specifically for lingerie retail. By merging advanced AI technology with professional bra fitting expertise, Brarista revolutionises the online shopping experience and tackles the long-standing challenge of incorrect bra sizing, which affects 90% of consumers and drives dissatisfaction and sales drop-off.

Unlike generic chatbots or simple measuring tools, Brarista offers deep lingerie specialisation — combining professionally graded fitting quizzes, deep learning algorithms, and large language models to democratise expert fitting services at scale. It delivers round-the-clock, personalised, brand-agnostic sizing recommendations through B2B2C white-label software embedded directly within retailers' websites, free to end-users.

Book a demo to discover how Brarista's AI bra fitting chatbot can help you turn sizing uncertainty into sales.