Undergear closing

[PSDave]

I have been watching Undergear have a 50% off everything sale. As the weeks went by there were more out of stocks daily. Today there are no pants, no shorts, no shirts, limited underwear (no thongs, no max exposure, etc) and only 3 swimsuits (boxer style). Basically their entire inventory is shoes.
A company once known for swimwear of all styles, resort and athletic wear going into summer with zero inventory only means one thing. Closing the doors.
When I asked they said all new stock next month. Anyone knows that you don't start selling summer clothes in mid June, by then most people have already got their summer wardrobe It's too bad , but it seems we are watching a long time company go under.

[Captain.Jammer]

I had been wondering about them... they have had almost no swimwear the past few times I went on the site. I thought that was odd, but wondered if the new line was not yet out. But, now, we are into the prime swimsuit shopping season, so .. yeah.. it appears you may be correct.

It is sad to see them go. It was their (former?) parent company and catalog, International Male, that first introduced me to the non-traditional styles and non-white underwear many, many years ago as a kid. Their "Buns" brief and Scoop t-shirt were the first ads I had seen that really got me interested in the upcoming "new" styles of underwear for men.

A good amount of my underwear collection came from the pages of the International Male and Undergear catalogs a couple decades ago.

[Dooley67]

I've shopped Undergear for years and am rather on the conservative side in what I order (bikini swimsuits and underwear, an occasional boxer swimsuit, but nothing racy or see through). I have noticed over the last couple of years that many of the styles have become very extreme - see through, what I consider to be bizarre underwear and body-type suits. And I've noticed in their clearance sales that many of these articles I've described are the ones that are on clearance. When shopping for a swim brief, often the ones I want have not been available in my size (S or M) and I know that at least one other person on the board had the same experience. If in fact Undergear is closing, it may be because they went out of the mainstream of underwear and swimwear and those articles simply did not sell. Just my opinion, perhaps I'm wrong.

D67

[Captain.Jammer]

That is very possible, D67.

Just a couple of weeks ago I came a cross a nice looking swim jammer on Undergear.

One thing I thought was really weird was that it had a zipper in the front center. I don't know about you, but I would think that might be uncomfortable touching your parts up front. Plus, the thought of getting pubes or other bits caught in it is rather scary.

Then upon closer inspection (actually reading the description because it was not clear from the image), I found out that the black side panels were mesh. That would be too much for my conservative style.

So, while I liked the colors and the overall styling, those two aspects were a deal breaker for me.

[DesertSpandex]

Would really hate to see them go, it was Undergear that introduced me to mail and internet ordering that greatly broadened the styles of underwear and spandex wear available to me.

[sebbie]

In digging into this I learned that Undergear is owned by Hanover Direct INC, which is an old on-line mail order operation perhaps best known for selling double knit slacks thru ads in magazines via mail order in the 1970s. They own several operations selling an array of different goods, Undergear being one of them. No mention that they are shutting down Undergear is on the Hanover Direct Web sire. This, copied from their Web site:

Hanover Direct, Inc. and its business units provide quality, branded merchandise through a portfolio of catalogs and e-commerce platforms to consumers. Hanover Brands, Inc. is comprised of the Company’s catalog and e-commerce web site portfolio of home fashions, apparel and gift brands, including The Company Store, Company Kids, Undergear, and Scandia Down. Each brand can be accessed on the Internet individually by name. Information on Hanover Direct, including each of its subsidiaries, can be accessed on the Internet at www.hanoverdirect.com.

[PSDave]

International Male started out in San Diego with stores there and West Hollywood. Known for style and outrageous underwear and swim wear. Eventually they created Undergear to focus on under, swim and active wear. All went great. Regular shoppers had personal shoppers that would know your likes and notify you of new merchandise before catalogs came out (pre Internet).
Somewhere along the line they made a Devils pack with Hanover House and moved the operation to Pennsylvania. Service suffered and the personal shoppers were eliminated. Eventually International Male was dissolved and only Undergear remained. Now it seems they have destroyed that.
Once Hanover took over and moved it from California the cutting edge styles were lost as was the personal service. Without the California eye for style the double knit thinking of Hanover House took its toll and it became just another mail order men's catalog. Another case of big business thinking they know better and screwing things up. Maybe I'm being politically incorrect but it seems when you take a gay oriented store with the gay eye for selecting clothing and hand it to a middle America polyester double knit mentality, style suffers.

[SwimTeamSpeedo]

Let me think... polyester double knit or cutting edge gay style. Wow, that's a tough one....lol. They did have nice swimwear in the day, and a good selection of various styles as Cap Jam and D67 point out. I suspect the brand is still strong enough that if some gay entrepreneur wanted to buy it back and resurrect it they could bring it back. However, since the catalog days, access to retailers with similar goods has flourished, making it a much tougher environment to play in.

STS

[sebbie]

International Male at the time gave straights an understanding of what was then a separate gay male culture, part of which was that gay men acted and dressed differently from straight men. For gay men, the clothing was all part of being part of the group.

As gays have gradually been assimilated into a mainstream culture and acceptance that is not defined by a particular sexual orientation, I suspect that there was gradually declining interest in and purchasing of clothing items of all sorts that could readily be seen as somehow "looking gay"

Most gay men like the new world that is evolving, where they are not seen as something different but very much part of everything normal. But that means a gradually declining demand for clothing items that would identify gay men as being gay and part of a separate subculture identified as somehow different. The gay marriage thing and the rapid acceptance of that idea is part of this whole mainstreaming lets not wear clothing that identifies us as different etc, which means declining demand for the International Male Undergear stuff.

MEANWHILE, if I want to shop for a sexy swimsuit, thong or compression gear, I have a host of lower cost vendors than Undergear with interesting stuff to choose from, starting with all the Amazon vendors but going also to all the Asian operations like the vendors in Aliexpress not to mention mainstream "Brief" vendors like Swimoutlet. If I really want clothes to wear that accentuate my male body parts there are dozens and dozens of sources still selling a wide array of goods at reasonable prices.

So, am I interested any more in buying stuff from a vendor that is set up mainly to cater to a "traditional" or old school gay clientele? Not really.

I THINK the California company that ran International Male and Undergear was in serious financial problems at the time IM was closed, and Hanover bought the Undergear brand thinking they could keep it profitable. Its just gotten to the point that running this as a catalog/online operation is no longer a profitable business.

If you want to blame this on something, maybe blame it on how rapidly gays are getting assimilated into mainstream culture in recent years.

As another example, you have Tim Cook, running Apple, and know one knew based on his appearance that he was gay until, just for the fun of it, he decided to announce it. Straight men did not quit buying Apple stuff because of the announcement

But then, you have the now ex-CEO of A&F, obviously gay and with successive plastic surgeries in vain attempts to keep looking like a young gay male, who ran a teen retailer with what could best be described as gay male- themed advertising, despite the occasional bows to heterosexuality with young sexy men and women together in ads. All of this was more than a little weird For some time, the retailer was very popular with teens, and they flocked to wear the branded A&F clothing. But suddenly this all became very uncool, and the kids started staying away in droves. The CEO got dumped and A&F is trying desperately to revamp their bare-chested male image with their customers. The ex-CEO must have had a fetish for flip flops and button fly jeans on males and other weird stuff...The flip flops and bare chests have all but disappeared, and some of their jeans now have (gasp) zipper flies!

Go figure.

[Dooley67]

As a straight man, I used to buy from International Male and Undergear because the swimsuits and the underwear they had were those that I liked. Being heterosexual, I never thought of either of those sites as being gay sites or that they catered to only gay men. I viewed them as sites that carried bikinis and briefs that anyone could/would wear and that by wearing them, you weren't being identified as gay. You were identified as a guy who liked to wear bikinis and briefs.

I wrote in an earlier post that the merchandise became very radical over the last couple of years, perhaps in an attempt to attract more gay men. But I think what happened is that Undergear lost many heterosexuals and metrosexuals because the selection of styles that I would choose, for example, became very limited. And as Sebbie and STS point out, there are so many online stores to choose from that for me, Undergear really won't be missed.

D67

[Captain.Jammer]

As a straight man, I used to buy from International Male and Undergear because the swimsuits and the underwear they had were those that I liked. Being heterosexual, I never thought of either of those sites as being gay sites or that they catered to only gay men. I viewed them as sites that carried bikinis and briefs that anyone could/would wear and that by wearing them, you weren't being identified as gay. You were identified as a guy who liked to wear bikinis and briefs.
...
D67

This describes me and my thinking, totally. Had no idea they were a gay-centered catalogs. I was more into purchasing the underwear, but did get a couple of swimsuits.

Attachments are pics of me in purchases from Undergear/International Male made many years ago:
Undergear Ribbed Cotton Contour brief underwear in powder blue (very soft and comfortable)
Tactics Sports Thong Swimsuit in orange (never been worn outside the house)

[PSDave]

It is interesting that International Male and Undergear didn't impress you as a gay store. It was my thought from the beginning that they were both directed at the gay male. However, my thoughts were stilted by the fact that I visited their shops in West Hollywood -- the gay mecca of Los Angeles.
Years before there had been AhMen that was one of the first to offer really skimpy underwear underwear out of soft and sexy fabrics. (I was very young when I saw an AhMen catalog at a friends house and I was fascinated and wondered from then on if that is what his father wore) It was a small shop on Santa Monica Blvd that eventually expanded into a full line clothing store with a huge inventory of bikini swim and underwear. Unfortunately the owning partners broke up and the store closed. In its place went International Male -- a store based in San Diego. (UnderGear was an off shoot of them) At the same time Parr of Arizona opened (now nu-parr) so in a few blocks of Santa Monica Blvd were several shops focusing on skimpy male attire. Having shopped in the stores I can attest that the staff was all gay and somewhat too helpful at times.
Having seen the catalogs from all the above mentioned I would not automatically assume that they were gay if I hadn't been in the stores. I think that, unfortunately, if there are bikini swimsuits and/or underwear in a shop it is automatically assumed gay.

[Captain.Jammer]

It is interesting that International Male and Undergear didn't impress you as a gay store. It was my thought from the beginning that they were both directed at the gay male. However, my thoughts were stilted by the fact that I visited their shops in West Hollywood -- the gay mecca of Los Angeles.
...

Well, my first exposure to International Male was when I was in grammar school, long before Undergear came about. I regularly saw the advertisements in the back of the LA Times newspaper's Sunday "Home" magazine.

I was intrigued by the "Buns" brief and the "Scoop" undershirts. I was interested in the gear they advertised there, because it was not the standard baggy white briefs that I was familiar with as a kid. Maybe the products and ads were aimed to homosexuals, but I didn't see it. At that age and back then in the 70's, "gay" was not as prominent in people's minds or as well known--or at least it wasn't to me in my innocent youth. I believe the term "queer" was used at that time, but didn't understand what it meant other than odd. It seems that "gay" became the universal slang term a few years later. Of course the terminology is irrelevant, except to explain my ignorance of it at that age.

I couldn't find the exact display ads that I had seen in those days, but this ad does feature those two products that first caught my eye.

[Newguy23]

Hi everyone. I registered this account to join this discussion. I got my start with alternative male underwear there, but ThI also shop at Freshpair.com and Internationaljock.com.

One of the things I've noticed is that whenever I order from Underwear or Freshpair, the packaging is not only identical, but ships from the exact same address. Does anybody know if this is the same company?

Freshpair is a great website and rarely has the same inventory clearing sales and promotions like Undergear.

Thanks!

[PSDave]

I think what is happening is there is one company that handles several mail order companies and it is all housed under one roof. Probably a way to save on shipping costs etc. When International Male/Undergear first left San Diego is went to Hanover Pennsylvania. A place called Hanover House was the central mailing for several catalogs. They may have moved or changed operations. I am guessing that having shipping departments working full time filling orders saves a lot by prorating the costs out. Very few companies would have enough business to keep a shipping staff busy full time.

[VDane77]

I can remember when Intl Male was in its heyday when they still had their retail stores and personally went to the WEHO franchise a few times. Their merchandise was as nice as their catalogs. Then, they branched out to create UnderGear then phased out the Intl Male Catalog. I think that was a mistake on their part. I think ever since 2015 started, they ceased distributing catalogs because the last catalog I got (& still have) was from the Holiday 2014 issue. I still have some old Intl Male & UnderGear Catalogs and will probably just save them as mementos of a bygone era. I wonder if they went under because they might have felt they were losing out to Andrew Christian which has a Huge gay following. If that were the case, they shouldn't have felt like that because Andrew Christian has their own style of merchandise and UnderGear's style was really cutting edge which is why I Loved their merchandise. Oh well, I hope they come back sometime. . .:(

[sebbie]

http://www.out.com/truman-says/2015/6/25/international-male-undergear

see this link

[VDane77]

http://www.out.com/truman-says/2015/6/25/international-male-undergear

see this link

Thanks for the link. I found it informative & unfortunate at the same time. As the article said, I guess I'm one of the lucky ones as I saved a lot of them from the 90s thru 2014. I'm going to miss buying clothes from them and I'll cherish the clothes I bought from them. They had really nice shirts, jackets, and accessories. Their buyer(s) did a Great Job, I should say. Being a SoCal (LA County) resident, their style was the epitome of the metro-sexual male. I don't think anyone can replace IM/UnderGear. . . :(

[PSDave]

I can sum up what happened to IM/Undergear in one word: Hanover. When they started in San Diego and then expanded to West Hollywood they knew their market and catered to it. When they decided to go more mainstream and turned it over to Hanover -- a company down the road from Amish Country -- they lost their edge. The cutting edge styles became run of the mill and their swimwear that went to the extremes became safe and the underwear was too much for mainstream buyers. Trying to divide with a separate catalog: Undergear, was a valiant attempt, but still marketed by the wrong people.
When they left SD the service went down, the styles suffered and the appeal to the gays dwindled. They knew their market when they only dealt in one market but when Hanover, that deals in dozens of markets, took over they had no idea what the gay or metrosexual man wanted.

[VDane77]

471...should I show this to Caitlyn? ;)

[sebbie]

Ha ha..International males always have a feminine side. Not the right model for the company "Redneck Male" or "Biker Male"