Wolford

Company Profile

Wolford today sells its legwear, bodywear, lingerie and ready-to-wear through a deliberately focused network - recent company reporting counts around 80 directly owned stores and 40 franchised units, more than 1,000 wholesale accounts, and its online boutiques - under the Lanvin Group, which is restructuring the brand around product innovation rather than store growth. The making has not moved: designs from Milan, circular-knitted in Bregenz and Murska Sobota from fine yarns under strict quality checks. The shop box on this page covers Wolford tights and bodywear, which both marketplaces carry; copy here stays strictly on construction, fibers and care.

Founded in the Austrian city of Bregenz in 1950, Wolford is the market leader for luxury skinwear. Wolford generates roughly half of its revenues with its core legwear product group. Closely matched with the core product group are the company's lingerie and ready-to-wear products - decorative and in some cases figure-embracing products like bodies and shirts (bodywear) as well as matching dresses and pullovers. These products are supplemented with a small selection of accessories such as scarves and bracelets. In the decades of its existence it has produced numerous product innovations, some of which are still bestsellers today, the Satin Touch tights sold since 1988 among them.

This success is based on a round-knitting technology specially developed and constantly refined by Wolford, as well as on sophisticated workmanship and quality checks. In combination with the finest yarns, this creates the specific comfort and product quality underlying the Wolford brand and its reputation. Wolford designs its creations in Milan and manufactures them at its headquarters in Bregenz, on Lake Constance, and in Murska Sobota, Slovenia - both regions with a long tradition of textile production - producing in Europe to strict ecological and social standards. As a listed luxury brand whose products both marketplaces carry, this page includes the shop box.

A Short History Note

Wolford has set standards over the decades, as exemplified by its cooperation with the world-famous photographer Helmut Newton in the 1990s: he played a key role in creating the image of the strong, self-confident Wolford woman. Always open to creative ideas, Wolford has repeatedly worked together with prestigious designers, including Vivienne Westwood and Vetements, and has even developed a cooperation with Adidas - a collaboration habit that stretches from Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier and Karl Lagerfeld to Missoni, Valentino and Giorgio Armani.

The company has been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange since 1995. In 2018 the brand became part of the Lanvin Group, the global luxury fashion group founded by its Chinese majority shareholder Fosun, which holds a majority stake of roughly three quarters of Wolford AG; the group also owns Lanvin, Sergio Rossi and St. John, and trades in New York as LANV. The store network has been deliberately trimmed in the group's restructuring - recent company reporting counts around 80 directly owned stores and 40 franchised units, with the brand carried in more than 1,000 wholesale accounts - a smaller, sharper footprint than the 250-plus monobrand points of sale and 3,000 trading partners in more than 45 countries that this directory recorded in the brand's expansion years. Copy on this page stays strictly product-focused: legwear and bodywear construction, yarns and care.