Popularity of sports bras catapulting lingerie sales

Washington: For long lingerie has remained a hidden and concealed piece of clothing, but women today are taking up bold fashion choices and filling up their wardrobes with new-age bralettes, spunky lingeries and making more room for some comfy and sturdy support system- a sports bra!

The lingerie business has seen a boom in the recent time and also witnessed the biggest sales growth in last three years, according to the NPD Group's Consumer Tracking Service.

What made this shift even more evident was last year's sales of the sports bra which scaled up by 6 per cent all because of the millennials who are readily spending almost a third of their lingerie budgets.

"Women of all ages are finding sports bras more comfortable," New York Post quoted Marshal Cohen, NPD Group chief analyst as telling WWD.

This major change in the lingerie business has also resulted in startups increasingly pivoting to the athletic sports bras.

Even celebrities are unable to resist the comfort and ease and are taking sports bras to the red carpet.

One such example was supermodel Emily Ratajkowski, who recently wore only a "cozy as well" sports bra to a breakfast event, which she paired with an open blazer and leggings.

And as they say, age is just a number; young women too are picking up sports bra instead of those old traditional lingerie options.

"Age doesn't matter much anymore when it comes to comfort," Cohen said.

Taking comfort a level up are corporate offices which are now easing strictness on dress codes.

"You can have different style bras, but at the core of [the] sports bra, it's about [the desire for] comfort," president of an intimates group Mary van Praag told WWD.

One of the biggest names in this business, Victoria's Secret, has also joined the bandwagon to manufacture comfy pieces of lingerie of the new-age women, lingerie startup COO Romain Liot told WWD.

"They are in the business to sell bras to please the eyes of men," Liot added.