A new wave of engineered underwear is hitting our shores, from bras that adapt to body temperature to shirts that correct posture. Erin O’Loughlin reports.
It all began four years ago when three executives got talking about Christmas pudding. Michael Flint, international sales director at Equmen and one of the said three, recalls the musings of his colleague Gavin Jones.
“He said, ‘You know, I’m in my early 40s, it’s April, the Christmas weight does not come off fast enough. I work harder every day at being my best in business, I have about 42 employees, I do public presentations, and I have less time than ever to go to the gym.”
Such was the problem.
The solution, it turned out, was the creation of the high- performance, compression fabric, seamless men's underwear range that is Equmen. The brand markets its undershirts, underpants and socks as offering wearers not only a number of aesthetic benefits including the appearance of a slimmer physique, but also health benefits such as improved circulation, greater core stability and improved posture.
Carried locally by David Jones and internationally by retailers including Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Selfridges, Flint says Equmen is the first brand in 25 years to bring innovation to the men’s underwear category.
“If you were to say you engineered men’s underwear, it was only the jock strap and the y-front that really had any technical differences. Then everything else in [the last] 25 years really was a cotton pair of underwear with micro modal, or it was bamboo.”
Over in Adelaide, Timothy Nielsen of Brazcom Imports is more interested in women’s intimate apparel, specifically what the company calls “cosmetic clothing”. Key products in Brazcom’s stable include Scala BioPromise – shapewear that claims to make a long-term reduction in a wearer’s body shape via far infrared rays – and the more recent Smart Memory Bra.
Created in Slovenia by Lisca, the Smart Memory Bra incorporates into its construction an intelligent memory foam that reacts to changes in a woman’s body temperature. According to Nielsen, this means the bra can “mould itself and contour to the wearer’s bust and provide that individualised fit”.
“It has the potential to replace a whole number of bras that you need to wear in a given day, saving you time and money,” Nielsen says.
If such products and claims sound too good to be true, both Flint and Nielsen are ready to assure retailers and consumers they're not. Nielsen, a qualified scientist, says he turns to research in independent journals to determine the veracity of manufacturers' claims.
“So you're checking the credibility of the story. We also look at the studies they've done and I could clearly see for example that the studies [Scala BioPromise] had provided were written by scientists because no one else could have written in that style or manner,” Nielsen says.
Independent testimonials, touch and hand-feel and the basic act of trying a garment on are all ways Flint and Nielsen say the average person can verify product claims.
“We say that the science in terms of what it does is very important to our male consumer because the strategy to sell to guys is simplified to 'what is it, how does it work, what does it cost',” Flint says. “The science and testimonial and testing data is quite important.”
As for why the intimates industry is turning more and more towards the development of 'smart' garments, Flint says it relates back to worldwide shifts in textile manufacturing.
“[I]t's becoming increasingly more expensive to make clothing the old way because it's very labour intensive and those developing nations and that work force is disappearing. You're actually finding more engineered garments because you program them into a machine and you need a fraction of the labour force to put the final trims on the garment, sew on a zipper, put the labels on and put it into a box. There's reinvestment in manufacturing everywhere.”
In the short term, Flint says Equmen is looking to create lighter weight materials, higher grade compression fabrics and organic treatments for clothing.
“Long term, I think it really depends on what the whole industry starts doing. There's a rush to get out there and try and experiment with new technologies, new yarns and new ways of doing things. What are consumers really into? We're going to monitor that and take a measured approach to doing anything that's outside of what we're really good at.”
Nielsen, meanwhile, says Scala is working on additional innovations using smart memory foam. He believes the real growth for the engineered garment sector is going to in products with vanity at their core.
“I think anything that talks about improving cleavage, or providing additional support, or fighting cellulite, reducing measurements without words like surgery and without very expensive creams and things that just get washed down the drain – anything that can do those functions at a reasonable price without invasive techniques is going to be a hit anywhere.”