The earliest blog post I can remember doing was circa 2007. I started the blog as a way to share my passion and love for underwear. I have been in love with underwear and a serious collector longer than that. Over all that time, few things matter more than brand quality. Your branding is important, you want to be identifiable. Your patterns and material matter, it needs to wear well and be comfortable. Your brand identity matters – it is what people will recognize.
I’ve seen brands come and go – I’m sure we can all rattle off a few. I have seen brands stay the course and are now classics. In the ones that remain, the brand quality is still tantamount. The designs and colours might be classic, but the brand identity and quality shine through. Think Calvin Klein underwear, 2xist, N2N Bodywear or CiN2. Others brands suffer let their when they lose sight of their brand identity or goals.
I used to love Andrew Christian underwear. Especially the Almost Naked line. I have a ton of underwear from him. I have visited his stand alone shops out in LA and had even gone to see the lines at his factory when he was “designed and produced in LA.” Somewhere along the way though – when he let the brand identity slip from designed and produced to just designed in LA, the quality started to suffer. Then the underwear started to suffer. Let’s face it – a pair of Almost Naked briefs is designed the same whether they are manufactured in LA or elsewhere – but the quality isn’t always the same. Mass production lends itself to ill fitting and poor quality control – if you chose not to focus on those things.
I haven’t shopped or ordered from AC in at least a year – all based on the brand quality suffering. Designs are still appealing. Colours and patterns are still amazing. They still make an Almost Naked line. But the last few orders from them – something was off. The brand quality suffered. All of a sudden seams weren’t finished the same, and rubbed in intimate places they shouldn’t. Waists were fine measurement wise, but briefs would be tight in other places. Extra material appeared where it shouldn’t, as if the briefs hadn’t been finished properly. Brand quality suffered alot. I hoped things would change, but the brand kept pumping out more porn like videos and advertisements and less quality products. Don’t get me wrong – not judging porn at all – I like it. But are you an underwear company or a porn company? Anyway – three pair of AC briefs from Friday – a great pair of royal blue bikinis and a pair of blue briefs (apparently I have two pair, as I’ve worn the others recently as well) for Saturday – both were made before things started their downward trajectory. These white briefs today that were made on the cusp. The brief itself is great and the material is semi sheer, but the waist band isn’t the same quality or design and makes them feel cheap.
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