By dint of seeing women steal men’s boxers, fashion finally gets involved

It’s been a long time since women picked up power or practical clothes from the men’s wardrobe, such as trousers, suits, tuxedos, pea coats, pea coats or safari jackets. It’s perhaps also for convenience that we may love the cut of so-called “boyfriend” jeans – which don’t need to be literally stolen off a boyfriend as the name suggests.

It is also a particularly cistern-regulatory formula to designate this type of loose-fitting “boyfriend” when worn by women, who may have just switched to the men’s department to benefit from the comfort, the pockets, and the different quality of the raw materials of which they are too often private! Heterosexuality doesn’t always show itself, what, even if fashion loves to start from this assumption.

Yet, a similar phenomenon is also taking shape in the lingerie department. Ruffles, lace, clasps and garters may have their charm, but they don’t always rhyme with comfort and resistance. And for this more and more women are also opting for briefs, boxers and underpants sewn in the men’s department. Because they are cut mainly for their functionality, and not to suit the female where is the male gauze…

By dint of buying underwear for the boys around them, women are also wearing it for themselves

Whether we picked it up or stole it from a passing father, brother, ex or lover, or enjoy borrowing it from a possible current boyfriend, men’s underwear does without frills. It’s just an elastic waistband, a cotton canvas, and that’s it. After all, very often it is the women around cis hetero guys who (r) buy him boxers or underpants (we know them, the ones capable of continuing to wear the same relaxed, worn-out, even holes, models for years without worrying about it).

According to a survey conducted by TNS-Worldpanel for the 2009 International Lingerie Show, three quarters of men’s underwear buyers are women in France. This statistic has certainly changed over the past decade, with the rise of e-commerce, advances in feminism, and ruminations on masculinity, but it still says a lot.

And maybe by dint of buying underwear for the guys around them, or just seeing some, more and more women seem to be wearing them for themselves! In pajamas, to go out at home, or even in everyday underwear. So much so that brands are starting to offer women so-called masculine cuts, but adapted to their morphology.

This is the case, for example, of Les Girls Les Boys, Alfie Paris or HommeGirls, many brands that play on blurring the boundaries between masculine and feminine, with pieces aimed at all genders. There are also menstrual panty brands that offer genderless menstrual boxers for the sake of inclusivity.

Brands are catching on to the trend of men’s boxer shorts for women, flaunting over pants

Olivia Francis, founder of men’s underwear brand Hamilton + Hare, just shared her know-how to create women’s boxers with t-shirt brand With Nothing Underneath, she tells the vogue British:

“It’s a mix of small details like rounding the hem so it’s more flattering on the thighs, or keeping the button fly design but sewing it so it stays straight.” We once had a customer review that said her wider waistband didn’t squeeze her hips like her husband’s boxers do, and that’s exactly what we wanted!

We want taking traditionally masculine basics and making them more suitable for a woman’s body. »

The pandemic and its confinements have only confirmed this trend for looser underwear, in which one can go out more comfortably at home. But also make them appear widely, even voluntarily blouse a bit, above the waistband of the pants, now that we can put the nose and navel out! This is called the yielding.

Perhaps easier to assume than string voluntarily overcoming, this visible men’s underwear trend for women has already been seen on the catwalks of Jacquemus, Y/Project or even Vivienne Westwood. And therefore it turns out to be quite easy to adopt with any underwear around the house (washing them first, of course).