The Gray Lady has finally noticed it ain't all boxers and white briefs for us guys anymore.
In today's Style section of The New York Times, writer David Colman takes a look at the explosion of novel or boutique brands of men's underwear in an article titled, "But What if You Get Hit by a Taxi?"
The piece looks at Under U 4 Men a bricks and mortar underwear store which opened five months ago in Portland, Ore., and according to proprietor Steven Lien became profitable in 30 days.
They also interview our friend, John Sievers, an owner of International Jock. John said that there's been an explosion in printed underwear and that their business has doubled in three years.
Other men's underwear industry folks they interview include: Dov Charney, American Apparel; Jason Sutherland, Ginch Gonch and Marshal Cohen, the chief analyst at NPD Group which tracks clothing trends.
You owe it to yourself to check out the entire article. Here are a couple of interesting tidbits:
Novelty underwear, for decades the butt of jokes and the joke of butts, has, in the last two to three years, turned into a serious business, capturing a significant share of the $1.1 billion men’s knit-underwear (that is, excluding boxers) market.
In 2006, white’s [underwear] share of the market dipped below 50 percent for the first time in decades, if not ever.
Ginch Gonch sold 1.8 million pairs of underwear last year at about $30 each.
From 2004 to 2006, sales of men’s knit underwear rose 5.3 percent, to 397 million pairs.
Though sales of specialty underwear were once driven by gay men, that has changed, even if they are still more-daring consumers of new styles. “It’s absolutely not a gay thing,” said Michael Macko, the men’s fashion director at Saks. “Straight guys want to be sexy, too.”
I don't care how cute they are, 30 bucks for a pair of underwear is a total rip-off.
Posted by: Christopher | April 21, 2007 at 06:59 PM