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.

[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/...male-undergear

see this link

[VDane77]

Originally Posted by sebbie

http://www.out.com/truman-says/2015/...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.