Shubhanjana Das
A literature lover and a fashion enthusiast, I dabble in fashion to merge my two loves. I get lost at grocery stores and find myself in shoe stores. When I'm not scrolling through Instagram, I like to live life out of a backpack and travel the country..
- February 20, 2019
- FASHION + SHOPPING
Dear Underwear, We Aren’t Chasing Perfection
Haven’t we learned the hard way that there isn’t ONE perfect body? So why should something as basic as underwear not comply with the same?
The dimensions of a woman’s world are restricted to 36, 24, and 36 inches. Not an inch smaller or bigger is allowed.
That of men’s is this region anciently named Toxic Masculinity, and there’s no way out of here, only in.
There’s perfect order and peace until a disruption appears in the form of a group of soldiers preaching body positivity and inclusivity in this otherwise regressive world. They saw, they came, they conquered.
Fin
Wait, what just happened? That can’t be it? What does that even mean?
All right, let’s cut to the real deal.
2018 was an interesting time to witness inclusivity and body positivity in the fashion industry. ‘Interesting’ because we had one of the grandest shows put up by Victoria’s Secret, shortly followed by supermodel Robyn Lawley taking to the streets of New York to make a case against Victoria’s Secret shows, showcasing impossible beauty and body standards. And this was only one of the many protests of varying scales across the globe. Thanks to our millennial goddess Riri, Savage x Fenty is now championing inclusion and body positivity. Amidst the multiplicity of rising voices which aren’t willing to give wings to anachronism in representation in the fashion industry, there’s one closer home which goes by the name of Tailor and Circus. These guys haven’t only chosen to not play the body shame game but make a new game altogether.
They’re a Bangalore-based underwear brand which has been causing ‘disruption’ in the highly sexualized lingerie market for two years now. It all started out as a humble endeavor to try and replace the discomfort and lack of options that men’s underwear brands in the country offered, often forcing them to “compromise between the comfort and softness and at the same time performance when it came to men”, says one of the founders of Tailor and Circus, Abhishek Elango, in conversation with Runway Square.
As far as women’s underwear goes, there seem to be similar gaps, wherein an uncomfortable emphasis is put on sexualizing women’s underwear with little attention to comfort and practicality. While there are a dozen shapes, styles, and color variations, a majority of brands seem to be missing out on the practicality and comfort that daily wear undergarments demand. And don’t even get us started on the inverse relationship that the sizes and the availability of styles that undergarments have. So, what do you do when you have to fill out loopholes of the same kind? We asked the Tailor and Circus guys and this is what they had to say:
“We started developing our unisex focused brand. We wanted to cater to both men’s and women’s underwear, using the same fabrics and the same prints. An extension of that has been gender-neutral, bias-free prints that we develop and the colors that we choose.”
Aren’t we all guilty of not putting enough attention on examining the fabric of the underwear while looking at whether it is seamless, hipster, or bikini? While the shape is surely a deciding factor, so should be the fabric. This is also thanks to the little awareness about hygiene when it comes to underwear. Through Tailor and Circus, we found out that not only can underwear be super-comfortable and sustainable, but also anti-microbial, using a fabric called Micro Modal. Basically, quality and practicality, instead of commercial appeal and sexuality, have been put on a pedestal and Tailor and Circus happen to be the nation’s first-ever preachers of this practice. The men’s and women’s underwear both have the same color and prints, meaning they’re unisex (well, in a way) and their driving force is the long-term path of body-positivity that they have embarked on.
So, if they are so against established norms of not only designing but also presenting underwear in the market, how do they portray their products to the mass? That’s one question we asked them as well, and this is what Elango had to say:
“We found that there weren’t enough safe spaces for women to talk about underwear. It had become a taboo, as any kind of conversation about underwear would automatically take a sexual context. So we knew that we have to break free from those two things. One important aspect which has emerged out of that has body-positivity, which is what we see is our long-term path towards body-neutrality.”
It’d be ideal if we didn’t have to look at the chiseled, and almost perfect bodied-women we see in commercials and photoshoots of undergarments and not feel relatable at all. One look at Tailor and Circus’s Instagram feed and you’ll know that these guys aren’t chasing those impossible body standards that have become an unsaid norm in the market. You’ll see real people as their models, people who step up themselves for teaming up with the brand in an effort to consciously break out of their body image issues and the restrictions of how desirability is regarded when it comes to different body sizes and shapes. Their campaign, which is called ‘Real Sizes’, showcases “bodies as they actually were” and doesn’t shy away from stretch marks, scars, cellulite, or rolls, insisting on their opposition to “any unrealistic beauty standards that have been set by the underwear industry.” More than anything, something as regular as underwear ought to be relatable and not preach perfection, right?
When asked about their future plans, this disruptive army had surprising expansion plans to reveal, saying that they aim to reach out to more people, providing them underwear on demand through local deliveries for emergency situations when you’re looking for safe, comfortable, and hygienic underwear. And women, they’re venturing into lounge bralettes across sizes made of Micomodal as well.
Now that the movement towards body-positivity has gained some much-deserved momentum, you can not only say no to your old, uncomfortable AF underwear but also be sure that you’ll have underwear that doesn’t wear you out throughout the day. Comfort over anything, any day!
A literature lover and a fashion enthusiast, I dabble in fashion to merge my two loves. I get lost at grocery stores and find myself in shoe stores. When I’m not scrolling through Instagram, I like to live life out of a backpack and travel the country.
