Lingerie for men: Lacy and transparent thongs rock the market

The New York Times

As a multidisciplinary artist working with black and queer identity, LaQuann Dawson, 27, often takes self-portraits, in her Brooklyn home and studio, in which she wears women’s lingerie. But he found that pieces made for women didn’t fit him well. “Either they were too small or I just found things that looked pretty from the back,” Dawson said.

As a way of getting around the problem, he started wearing pieces with the back to the front, or buying larger sizes. But one day, browsing through Instagram, he found a company called Leak NYC, a menswear brand that makes sexy tights with lacy, sheer materials and ample space in the front. It was a revelation.

“The Leak seemed to have fallen from the sky,” Dawson said. “They think a lot about how to accommodate the male body, but with a femininity complement.”

Men’s lingerie is taking off with a segment of tuned-in male consumers looking for sexy underwear that’s more expansive than swimming trunks.

Many of these pieces are products from start-up brands such as Menagerie, Candyman Fashion and Ciciful, and their promotion often involves positive messages about the body and sex. “Your gender expression is all that matters,” says the website of Wicked Mmm, a Montreal-based lingerie brand. And some established brands have jumped in.

Cosabella, the Italian lingerie brand created by a couple in 1983, began selling lace briefs, semi-sheer thongs and colorful thongs on its website in November. “We’re talking about half the population on the planet, in terms of market size,” said Guido Campello, 41, the company’s executive co-president.

Campello knows that not everyone is ready for his products. “There’s a segment of the population that reacts by saying ‘sure,'” he said, referring to customers he defines as fashion friends, including gay men and non-binary people. “But will it be possible to convert straight people?”

It remains to be seen, but Campello was successful in converting one of his toughest clients. “I converted my father,” he said, referring to Ugo Campello, the company’s co-founder.

Savage x Fenty, the lingerie line created by Rihanna, launched its first menswear collection in 2020. “It was out of stock in 12 hours, the entire collection,” said Christiane Pendarvis, the company’s vice president of sales. “We were astonished.” A bold collection, featuring cherry red thongs and sheer mesh tops, was released this year for Valentine’s Day. [14 de fevereiro, nos Estados Unidos].

Many of the buyers, Pendarvis added, were not girlfriends, romantic partners or spouses, but the men themselves. “It’s a matter of personal expression,” she said. “Do you want to wear a lace thong? Go ahead.”

And Fleur du Mal, a luxury lingerie brand with stores in New York and Los Angeles, recently launched the Fleur Pour Homme collection, which included boxer briefs made of sheer lace. The stock sold out in two days, and the waiting list is over 500 buyers, said Jennifer Zuccarini, the brand’s founder.

Lingerie sales have been strong during the pandemic, and many manufacturers have realized an untapped men’s market, which goes along with another trend in the textile market: that of gender-expanding clothing.

“Men’s lingerie is just a small part of a much larger movement,” said Francesca Muston, vice president of fashion content at WGSN, a trend forecaster; “We have a whole generation that embraces gender inclusion and diversity. And for the fashion industry, for our customers at WGSN, this is great news.”

“Big” is a relative term, as gender-inclusive clothing accounts for less than 1% of clothing sold in the United States, according to the WGSN.

Men’s lingerie is not completely new. Valerie Steele, director of the New York Fashion Institute of Technology Museum and author of “Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power,” sees the origins of men’s lingerie in the 1920s.

In his research, Steele discovered a collection of men’s underwear from Soviet Russia. She was surprised by details such as the embroideries of sickles and hammers, but also by the delicacy of the fabrics. “Elite men’s underwear throughout the 20th century has always been made from fabrics that we see as feminine, for example silk,” Steele said.

The 1970s saw a major shift in the way men’s underwear was marketed. “That’s when the sexual revolution really became a commercial trend,” Steele said. “It was around that time that we started to find ads by Jockey and Calvin Klein depicting men as sex objects.”

She mentions the International Male catalogue, first published in 1974 and often described as “the Victoria’s Secret for men,” which featured page after page of male models wearing skimpy thongs. Steele sees the catalog as a harbinger of underwear that overtly sexualized the male body. “It came mostly from gay culture, but also from broader sexual liberalization,” she said.

Louis Dorantes, 30, who founded Leak NYC in 2016, believes we are in the midst of a new moment like that. “We’re entering a new era where male-presenting bodies are comfortable wearing effeminate shapes, effeminate fabrics, that didn’t exist when I was younger,” he said. “It feels like a brave new world. We’re really trying to explore and push the boundaries of the binary issue, which has restricted us for so long.”

Queer nightlife has long been a space where binary gender stereotypes have been challenged, subverted, ignored or otherwise mocked, and where daring lingerie made from stretchy lace, sheer mesh and cut-out fabrics has found a home. .

“This was all born on the dance floor,” said Dorantes, who went to nightclubs a lot when he was a designer at Rag & Bone in the 2010s. Leak was inspired by parties like Papi Juice and Inferno, in New York, in which highly sexualized gay culture combines with a gender-fluid fashion aesthetic. The lingerie he produces is meant to be worn both in bed and at night.

“Everything is very beautiful, wonderful, and carefully curated,” said Dorantes. “I had to be very careful with what I wore, for example replacing leather and metals with soft fabrics, for a ‘harness’, or creating a leotard that accentuated my body as a masculine person.”

Leak fans include Bowen Yang, 31, who is part of the “Saturday Night Live” cast. Yang defined the brand as “it feels like the brotherhood of traveling jeans, but for queer people”. He thought about wearing a Leak model at the Critics Choice Awards ceremony last month. “Men’s lingerie is actually a beautiful way to seize power for yourself, if that’s what you want.”

Kennie Mas, a brand named after its founder and producing men’s lingerie and fetish clothing in Toronto since 2018, also emerged from the LGBT world. The company’s recent products include a shimmering purple leotard that leaves the chest bare, and a floral thong made from stretchy polyester.

“The more feminine the pieces, the more I sell,” said Mas, 28. “Men’s lingerie, or whatever you call it, is definitely boiling right now.”

Some men with more traditional tastes are also starting to take an interest in new lingerie.

Steven Green, 28, a photographer and plus-size model based in Kansas City, Missouri, modeled on the Savage x Fenty show in 2020. “I never thought about menswear until I started working with them,” Green said. Before, he wore Calvin Klein or Polo Ralph Lauren underwear, but he has since expanded his underwear wardrobe.

Now, for what he calls “special occasions” with his wife, Green wears red satin boxers from Savage x Fenty. “If I want something a little sexier, that’s what I choose because the material is so refined,” he said. “Now we men have our Victoria’s Secret.”