Getting Comfortable With Men's Underwear
Selection, style and selling points are key for retailing to men.
Now in buttery soft Modal fabrics, stamped with graphic prints and decorative waistbands, men’s underwear has come a long way since the three-packs of cotton tighty whiteys sold at big-box retailers and department stores. At LASC, a men’s lifestyle store in West Hollywood, Calif., fashion-conscious men shop for underwear with as much attention as buying a pair of premium jeans.
“Men have become much more vain, if you will. They want to look good, and part of it is wearing great underwear,” said Don Zuidema, owner of LASC, which sells clothing, denim, underwear and swimwear. While other men’s clothing stores offer a small selection of men’s underwear for impulse purchasing, Zuidema found that stocking a comprehensive selection of underwear from Calvin Klein to boutique lines such as XTG and Todd and Terry is more effective in guaranteeing a sale.
“If you have two brands, you go, ’I like this one, but I think I’m going to look around because there may be a better one someplace else.’ They want to have the sense that when they’re shopping for [underwear], just like when they’re shopping for jeans or anything else, ’Wow, this store really has a lot of options and selection,’ so when they make their choice, they feel like they have had the opportunity to see the best of the best.”Smooth selling
Men’s fashion underwear has a reputation for being a dominantly gay market. However, at men’s lifestyle store Alpha in Los Angeles, co-owner Darren Gold said that the low-maintenance heterosexual man will add basic underwear to his purchase given the right circumstances.
“It’s definitely mostly a gay customer, but not exclusively,” said Gold, who counts underwear as only 3 percent to 5 percent of his inventory, which includes books, home accessories and clothing. “A lot of women love to buy underwear for their husband/boyfriend. Or the straight guys only buy it when they’re with their wives—not alone. They like the basic brief or boxer brief—nothing too kitschy or gimmicky, but it has something that makes it interesting. Also, most important is comfort, feel and weight of fabric.”
Joel Gossman, who has been a men’s underwear sales rep for Calvin Klein for 10 years and has also represented a number of boutique men’s underwear brands, agrees that the mainstream man shopping at specialty stores is the next frontier in the market’s growth.
“I go to the gym and in the locker room I see these guys in their underwear and it’s interesting to see that most of them, they’re not dressing too fancy. There’s still a lot of Jockey and Fruit of the Loom and Hanes out there,” Gossman said. “I think there’s still an opportunity to convert those guys to something that is a little more fashion-forward. I think a lot of guys are reluctant; they have this issue of potential femininity, shall we say. We’re winning them over slowly.”
Those shy guys are part of the reason why underwear e-tail shopping is an attractive alternative. Ten-year-old Los Angeles–based e-tailer Internationaljock.com stocks more than 80 brands that offer more than 2,000 styles. Customers range from athletes to gay men, women shopping for their husbands and “sophisticated urban metrosexual-type” men.
“It is clearly a robust market,” said John Sievers, co-owner of Internationaljock.com. The site sells brands such as Calvin Klein, Diesel, 2(x)ist, Andrew Christian, Go Softwear and high-end brands such as GrigioPerla and Hanro. “We’ve had substantial growth every year in our history. The market seems to be essentially recession-proof. Men’s underwear is something that’s not that expensive so a guy can buy a few pairs and feel better about the way he looks.”
Sievers credits the embarrassment factor as being a competitive edge for Internationaljock.com over bricks-and-mortar underwear retailers.
“Shoppers can come to an Internet store like ours and buy anything their hearts desire, completely anonymously” he said. “If they want a thong or a jockstrap or something sexy and see-through or even a leopard-skin brief that enhances their bulge, they can jump on the Internet, buy it, have it delivered to their house, and no one’s the wiser. The embarrassment that might occur with a clerk in a bricks-and-mortar store is no longer a factor.”
Underwear designer Andrew Christian’s wholesale and direct-to-consumer e-tail business has been on a growth track since appearing on reality TV shows such as “The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency” in 2008 and “The Fashion Show” on Bravo.
“It got to a point where we got a little bit too oversaturated on the Internet and we had to pull back from some of the people we were selling to—which is something I hate to do—but to keep our business strong with our core customers,” said the Los Angeles–based designer.
Sievers added that Christian’s marketing outreach has helped the brand’s sales on Internationaljock.com. “He does a lot of good event marketing [and is] a very talented designer,” he said. “We sell boatloads of his stuff.” Fabric, fit and flattery
Staying within the framework of the basic brief and boxer-brief style, manufacturers add design interest through new knit fabrications and cuts that can enhance a man’s assets.
“For so long it was the 1x1 knit in rib. Now—particularly in the fashion end—everyone is doing Micromodal, things with spandex, even seamless because the fabric and the hand is so great. It fits even better and it feels so good,” said Zuidema, who added that customers will pay more for the better fabrication and fit. Average prices for fashion underwear at LASC range from $25 to $40.
For Internationaljock.com, one of the hottest categories is “Enhancing Underwear.” Andrew Christian’s “Shock Jock” briefs include a contouring pad to “create a perfectly shaped bulge” and “Flashback” boxer that has support elastic built into the seams of the underwear to lift the bum. Briefs by Obviously For Men and Internationaljock.com’s private-label brand, John Sievers, are cut with a large pouch to give the wearer a natural boxer-short feel.
“Many manufacturers have released bulge-enhancing styles—Wonderbras for men that lift and pull everything forward and outward and away from in between a guy’s legs,” Sievers said. “It’s one of the most popular product categories that we offer. The range of products that are available out there is amazing. It’s a real revolution in men’s underwear in the 10 years since we’ve been out in business.”
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