Men’s Underwear Finally Packs a Punch
Take a peek at men’s boxer shorts and it’s plain to see there’s been a change in underwear.
Men’s boxers have gone from boring to wild. They’re so flashy, it’s a shame guys don’t wear them on the outside. As it is, the world may never know whether one is sporting a pair of sexy black silk boxers or a silly pair of cotton boxers festooned with fish.
Things were not always so exciting in the men’s underwear department. Five or 10 years ago boxers came in either solid white or small, conventional prints.
Now there are boxers made of colorful silks much like a jockey’s uniform, seasonal boxers for every holiday (hearts, kisses and teddy bears are hot for Valentine’s Day), politically correct boxers adorned with endangered species and campy boxers with cows and polka dots.
“Fashion has to find a home, and it will seek any place. We’ve gone through the sock era and clothing, so now there are boxers,” says Ray Wills, men’s fashion director for Macy’s West/Bullock’s in San Francisco.
“Men’s underwear has definitely taken a big step forward. With MTV, Calvin Klein and Madonna, men have become sex objects. They’re taking better care of their bodies,” Wills said. Wild underwear helps them flaunt what they’ve got.
The metamorphosis of boxer shorts began with Nicholas Graham, founder, owner and self-described “chief executive underpant designer” for Joe Boxer in San Francisco. In 1985, Graham decided to switch from designing neckwear to boxer shorts.
“I needed a fresh supply of underwear, and I’m too cheap to buy them, so I decided to make my own,” he jokes.
Men’s underwear has not been the same since. Joe Boxer has turned out more than 5,000 different boxers in conversational prints; other manufacturers have imitated their fun prints.
“Before that fashion underwear for men was limited to string bikinis,” says Denise Slattery, spokeswoman for Joe Boxer.
Among Joe Boxer’s more whimsical designs is the top-selling “yes/no” pair that says “no” by day but glows “yes” in the dark. Ants, bananas, happy faces, spaceships, moose heads and celebrity kisses have all wound up on boxers.
“Our receptionist pretended she was Barbara Bush’s lips,” Slattery says.
“We’ve had 3-D underwear that had a 3-D print and came with their own 3-D sunglasses. When you wore them you actually became larger than life,” she says. “We’ve done inflatable boxers. They were made out of some kind of vinyl. We didn’t sell very many.”
For spring Joe Boxer has unveiled its “Safari So Good” collection, decorating boxers with animal prints and pictures of turtles, dinosaurs, snakes and assorted wildlife. One pair features crabs with the words “pinch me” that glow in the dark; those and other Joe Boxers are available for about $15 at the Bullock’s Men’s Store in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa.
Graham gets his ideas “from all over the place.” He was recently inspired to create a line of teddy bears wearing Versace-style leather straps.
“It’s really sick,” Graham says. “It’s kind of a joke on fashion.”
About half of Joe Boxer customers are women who wear the boxers to the gym, the beach, the street. So the company launched Joe Boxer Girlfriend, featuring boxers for women with takeoffs on feminine images including giant compacts, lipsticks and teddy bears in different hair styles called “Teddy ‘Dos.”
“Underwear worn as outerwear has become a part of society,” Slattery says. “Now you can be a little bit bawdy. We think if you’re going to show your underwear you should make it funny.”
Others have caught on. Tie Rack in MainPlace/Santa Ana offers its own line of crazy boxer shorts adorned with polka dots, elephants, penguins, stars and stripes and fish ($13).
“Guys are willing to wear anything--stripes, polka dots, hearts or the preppy kind grandpa would have worn,” says Ziva Adams, manager of Tie Rack. “The weirder the design, the more contrasting the colors, the more they like them.”
In addition to wild prints, men are turning to silk boxers in sophisticated colors such as black and red, Wills says. Bullock’s Men’s Store has hand-painted silk boxers by JWE Silk with abstract geometrics, colorful crazy quilt and stained glass prints ($32.50). There are also silk boxers with paisley, medallion and other tie prints by Pitti Uomo ($28) and solids in red for Valentine’s Day, black, white, navy or hunter green ($25).
Calvin Klein, which has enjoyed success at the other end of the underwear spectrum with its cotton briefs, has introduced boxers made out of plain cotton knit. Marky Mark wears them in concert (beneath jeans that are falling off him) and in ads for Calvin Klein.
“Guys wear them with their jeans hanging low to show off the waistband. Girls wear them like bicycle shorts to Marky Mark concerts,” says Michelle Kessler, spokeswoman for Calvin Klein in New York City. The Calvin boxers sell for about $16 at I. Magnin, Neiman Marcus and other department stores.
Why the radical overhaul in underwear?
“Each generation has to rediscover fashion trends. The young love the wild prints,” Wills says. “This may continue for another season, then the pendulum will revert back and this new breed may discover the all-white boxer short.”
