Spanx Women's Fashion Brand

The Spanx story begins with a wardrobe problem and a pair of scissors. In 1998, founder Sara Blakely was getting ready for a party when she realized she did not have the right undergarment to provide a smooth look under white pants; armed with scissors, she cut the feet off her control top pantyhose, and the Spanx revolution began. With a focus on solving wardrobe woes, the brand has grown to offer bras, underwear, leggings, active and more. This page discusses those products strictly as garments - fabrics, construction, sizing and care - which is the ground the invention itself sits on: a foundation garment redesigned to work under real clothing.

The scale record is dated and specific. In March of 2012, founder Sara Blakely was named the world's youngest self-made female billionaire by Forbes Magazine and one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and opening retail shops across the United States, Spanx can be found worldwide in more than 50 countries, and the company states its mission: to help women feel great about themselves and their potential. The claims carry their own dates - a 1998 invention, a 2012 recognition, an Atlanta base and a 50-country reach.

The Product Ranges, as Garments

Why Spanx shapewear? The answer comes in product terms: the brand strives to help women feel fabulous about their clothes and themselves, and its hosiery is designed with comfortable shaping yarns. The bra range is presented on comfort engineering - the point that support no longer has to be traded against comfort, across strapless, underwire and soft styles for a range of band and cup sizes - and the underwear range on eliminating visible panty lines, across bikini, cheeky, hipster and thong cuts in soft, comfortable fabrics. Read as buying guidance, the checks are construction checks: compression level matched to the garment it will sit under, seams and edges checked against show-through, and fabric weight matched to the season.

Apparel Search's own foundation-garment resources surround the brand - the Bra Glossary, the Underwear Glossary, the Lingerie Influence section and the underwear stores directory - and all of those links are on this page, because for a product category defined by fit terminology, the glossaries are genuinely part of the research. The official Spanx site is listed in References & Further Reading. Among its S neighbours, Spanx is the letter's foundation specialist: Shoshanna's 2001 swim separates borrowed lingerie-inspired sizing from this category, while Spanx is the category itself, and the two profiles keep their jobs separate.

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