Women's Lingerie — Page 2

Underwear Styles a Lingerie Buyer Stocks

A wholesale lingerie department is organised by garment type. Panties are the volume line, and within them the styles divide by cut and coverage: briefs, boyshorts, thongs, bikinis and high-cut styles each serve a different customer and a different outfit. Buyers stocking a new store usually begin with a core of briefs and bikinis in neutral shades, then add boyshorts and thongs as fashion lines whose colours and fabrics change with the season.

Bras sit alongside as the department's fit product: band and cup sizing, underwire and soft-cup construction, and strapless and multiway styles for occasion dressing. The underwear and bra glossary sections linked from this page define each style, and the fashion influence section linked above covers panties, g-strings, boyshorts and thongs as products, style by style.

How the Two Lingerie Pages Work Together

The first page of this directory lists the lingerie wholesalers themselves — manufacturers, distributors and intimate apparel houses — with their locations and contact details. This page exists so that a buyer planning a department can work through the product types first, then return to the company listings with a clear list of the styles, size ranges and fabrics the store actually needs.

When you approach a supplier from the first page, name the styles you want rather than asking for a general lingerie range: a house whose strength is bras may not be the right source for cotton panties, and a basics manufacturer may not carry occasion styles. Samples matter most in this department, because fit and fabric hand-feel are what the customer judges, and they cannot be assessed from a catalogue photograph.

Fabric is the other planning decision. Cotton and cotton-blend panties are the everyday core of most departments; microfibre and lace styles sell as fashion and occasion lines; and seamless constructions exist because close-fitting dresses and trousers show lines. A buyer who maps each style to the outfit it is worn under — everyday, occasion, sport, or under tailored clothing — ends up with a range that covers the department without duplicating it, and can brief every supplier on the first page from the same plan.

Replenishment is the other half of lingerie buying. Core underwear styles sell all year and must never be out of stock in the middle sizes, so ask each supplier how core styles are held, how quickly they can be reordered, and whether shades stay constant between dye lots. A supplier who keeps your core range continuous is worth more than a slightly cheaper source whose styles change every delivery.