Lingerie especially bra is a product category that has seen massive positive developments in recent times and its further scope of growth in the Indian domestic market as well as in exports is tremendous. With a female population of at least 450 million in the age group of 15-64 (15 years is the average age to start wearing a bra), increasing urbanisation, growing number of working women, more awareness about fitness, growing fashion element in bra, ease of online buying, this segment is developing rapidly, but at the same time, there are millions of women in India who hardly wear bra. This can be certainly another area of growth for bra companies. Nevertheless, things are improving with regard to challenges in raw material sourcing, skilled workforce for bra manufacturing, less tilt of bra manufacturers but all these need to happen at a greater pace.
Lingerie has always been talked about in hushed voices in India, and on the retail front, this market is predominantly unorganised and plagued by the lack of category awareness amongst audiences. For long, it had been an uncomfortable experience for women to shop lingerie from physical stores as they were mostly run by men. Experts believe that the evolution of this category in India has not kept pace with the fast-changing outerwear fashion.
Women need to be motivated to wear bra to help prevent sagging, improve posture and also get greater support for movements. Various brands are carrying campaigns and creating awareness at their own level, with the power of social media and access to the internet. As a result, women from remote locations are now buying online and even following the leading lingerie brands. However, women across the country need to be more updated about the right lingerie that would be suitable for their body types alongside styling to improve the shopping experience. This, in turn, can help the overall lingerie market – which is still at a nascent stage – to grow enormously.
India lingerie market
US $ 4.2 billion in 2020
Expected to reach US $ 12 billion by 2026
(Bras and panties contribute 85% in the total women’s lingerie segment)
Yusuf Dohadwala, CEO, Intimate Apparel Association of India (IAAI) says, “As an industry, consumer educative initiatives are comparatively low but online retailers and start-up brands are certainly doing their bit to educate consumers.” He further adds that the percentage of such ignorant consumers is reducing with every passing year as they are being made more aware about wearing the right innerwear.

“As far as raw material is concerned, people are now more comfortable using synthetic fabrics as against cotton. Quantities have increased, so don’t face much challenges with MOQs and MCQs. Customs clearance of goods are much faster than they used to be earlier,” Yusuf Dohadwala, CEO, IAAI
Lacking on export front!
Various research reports state that with regard to the demand of bras, North America is expected to hold a prominent market share while Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing market. Bangladesh, Vietnam and Sri Lanka are doing well in this segment, but India is missing this growth mainly due to lack of capability, capacity and competence.
Being the most complicated apparel product, there are many challenges in bra manufacturing which include finding expert tailors and retaining them due to their higher demand.
But there are few very good companies who have strong know-how about bra manufacturing and a good talent pool of skilled workforce. They also don’t have the tilt for exports as their strong belief is that domestic market has been fast growing and rewarding. For decades, Indian bra manufacturing was limited to only a few players who did not scale up as compared to market demand.
Agreeing with this, Yusuf believes that this has led to short supply in the domestic market, which is why manufacturers have not looked up to exports. He also adds that times are now changing for good. In the last five years, there has been a lot of investment and production scaling. “We have new and bigger factories which are in compliance with export requirements. I have no doubts that India will be the leading exporter of innerwear and comfortwear products in next five years,” he says.

“DaIntimo is increasing its market share in both export and domestic markets by expanding distribution channels, developing new product lines, implementing effective marketing and advertising campaigns, and building partnerships with other companies or organisations. We have also introduced new brands especially for the evergrowing needs of plus-size production in Indian market,” Pratibha Bhatnagar, Founder, DaIntim
Indian companies like Avante Exports (Da Intimo) believe that partnering with local distributors or agents can be an effective way for Indian lingerie brands to gain access to new markets and navigate local regulations and customs.
“To overcome these and other challenges, we need to be proactive, adaptable and willing to take calculated risks. Therefore the brand requires resources and support, such as mentorship, networking and professional development opportunities, to counter the challenges of starting and growing a business,” says Pratibha Bhatnagar, Founder of the company.

“Until and unless, strong input base (trims) will not be available within India and that too at the scale and quality that international brands demand, exports will remain laggard. The majority of Indian domestic producers are not geared up to meet the international standards of design and production techniques. Hence, they don’t fare well in global markets. So focus is required on product development and training,” Varun Vaid, Business Advisors, Wazir Advisors
India: Growing market for overseas brands
India has bra brands right from basic to premium and most of them are growing well. And at the same time, international brands are also successfully creating their space in India. Like Wacoal, Victoria Secret, Triumph, H&M are very common in the country. In last few months, Triumph International launched its first store in India and now has 3 EBOs. It also aims to have 20 stores soon. Recently, Victoria Secret also started its second Indian store and has plans to open 8 to 10 stores in the next 3-5 years.

“Recently, we launched our new channel general trade with 50+ POS across the country. We are also looking at opening another more than 100 POS, which will take the total count to more than 200, helping Wacoal grow exponentially in the long run. We are also looking to launch more product categories and new manufacturing units in India as well as revamp our website,” Pooja Merani, COO, Wacoal
Wacoal opened its very first store in India in December 2015 and thereafter, it has opened back-to-back 12 EBOs. During 2019-22, it also opened 40+ LFS (Large Format Stores). Recently, the brand also launched new channel general trade with 50+ POS (Point of sale) across the country.
Pooja Merani, COO, Wacoal says, “We have the best loyalty rate of more than 60 percent, with a data-driven, clear-thinking and loyalty-oriented approach, we intend to promote Wacoal products to its target audience and boost sales.”

“Around 80% of women wear the wrong bra size and we offer sports bra as per Indian body type which ensures comfort from all aspects. Now looking at the scalability, we have developed few standard sizes also. Maikai has the original design registered with Indian patent office,” Vidya Sethi, Founder, Maikai
A report by Transparency Market Research says that many international brands are planning to establish production facilities in untapped markets in the region to increase their market share. And this is happening in India also as from the last quarter, Wacoal has already started production of dailywear bras, panties, panty combo sets, etc., in the country.
It is also pertinent to mention here that with the growing reach for international lingerie brands in India, there are enough chances that these brands’ sourcing from India for international market will also grow.

“Bras are our best-selling category. We have three products at the moment and plan to launch two more in the next quarter. We were ahead of the curve and introduced fuss-free bras without hooks, wires and straps even before the pandemic. We will continue to put customer’s comfort and well-being as our priority while designing our products,” Vasanth Sampath, Co-Founder, Tailor and Circus
Development on raw material front
Stakeholders of the industry feel that many improvements are still required in the area of raw material sourcing. This segment is capital-intensive and very few are willing to invest in quality machines and production in the country. India is still dependent on China for most of the raw materials. Brand source raw materials or finished goods from outside due to the unavailability of right quality materials in India. India doesn’t have many expert complete package solution providers in trims and accessories for bra or intimatewear segment, as each raw material of intimatewear is technical and needs one to specialise in that.
Nylon spandex dyeing facility is a big challenge for the industry, as most of the premium lingerie collection include Nylon Spandex usage. It is also an issue when it comes to growth in export market as Nylon Spandex is predominately used by the western world.

Clovia, India’s premier D2C fashion, lingerie and personal care brand for the urban millennial woman, designs and manufactures in India, sells premium fashion lingerie, innerwear, athleisure and personal care. Suman Chowdhury, Co-Founder & COO, talks exclusive to Apparel Online.
We offer 250 new styles a month in 75+ sizes helping almost 600k women to find the correct fit for themselves. Our USP is the variety of styles that we offer our customers. More than 75 per cent of our inventory is less than 30 days old.
Clovia aims to redefine the Indian lingerie market and help customers choose beyond standard cuts, shapes and colours. The brand is based on an amalgamation of fashion and technology. We are working on increasing the depth and spread in bras and exploring new age fabrics, trims and techniques.
Initially, the lingerie manufacturing industry ran in a very limited way with only a few thousand units. At that point, the brand could not provide more than 100 styles per year. Every month, we had to debut more than 100 new models while closely monitoring our inventories. Therefore, we had to persuade our collaborators to work on these illogical manufacturing ideas. However, we could demonstrate to them how technology could be used to create the best production schedules.
We have built tech to closely monitor our inventory and raise orders. Our QC and product teams are in regular touch with factories to ensure timely delivery and quality. We source from all across India and a few other countries. We have built tech to monitor inventory and raise orders. Stale moving inventory has been the biggest challenge in the lingerie industry. We have addressed that since the inception of our brand, and we still continue to order in smaller batches. We are also working towards training more and more people to cater to the future scale needs of the industry, which could be a possible showstopper with growing demand in the category.
Kotak Overseas, Mumbai is one of the prestigious companies offering a large variety of raw material for lingerie. It is constantly working towards enhancing and expanding production capacity especially for products like hangers, bra cups and elastics.
Nikhil Kotak, CEO of the company states, “Traditional approach of buying all accessories from a single trader or company is changing now; every accessory manufacturer comes across with its own product strength and capabilities, for instance, an elastic manufacturer may have some specific range of elastics while fabric manufacturer may have an added quality advantage over others in terms of finish, design, price etc. Basically the customer has become more specific towards requirements and procures selectively now.”
Anticipating a modest 10-15 per cent growth this year, the company is in the process to add fine quality hooks and eyes to expand its product line (for bra) and re-start underwire manufacturing facility soon.
Leading lingerie brands have a major thrust on right sourcing. Clovia sources raw materials, develops internally, manufactures in facilities operated only for it and guarantees its own four-level quality control besides marketing through a variety of direct sales channels. With a growing demand in the category, Clovia has partnered with local raw material manufacturers and is developing world-class materials in India, so as to cut down on lead time, minimums and source customised fits. The online lingerie giant believes that with Indian factories focusing on R&D with inputs given from their design teams, based on international forecasts, the supply chain has become much more efficient and responsive to customer needs. With uncertainty prevailing internationally, imports over the years have come down drastically.

“We are planning to launch bra vertical very soon, for this summer season. We are developing the product now and have done a fantastic study about this product to understand the pain points of end consumers using this product. This segment is very essential for women in their daily activities, more than essential, it is more of fashion with comfort. Comfort comes from the fabric and fit of the product. We are improving the fabric quality and the cotton version is going to be Organic Cotton, which is naturally soft. To have better comfort and hand feel of the product, we have done more R&D in each and every process of garments with our integrated vertical set-up facility,” T. Gokulakrishnan, VP, Faso (KPR Mills)
Pratibha is of the opinion that there should be a greater focus on sourcing materials from ethical and sustainable sources, and also on reducing waste and minimising the environmental impact of production. Additionally, focus should also be to develop innovative new materials or processes that can improve the performance and functionality of lingerie products.
It will not be wrong to say that as the Indian bra industry is improving in all the ways, most of the industry has tilt towards upgrading the quality. In future, India must see more investments in raw material factories which in turn would drive the market further and reduce India’s dependency on other countries. All this needs to happen at a comparatively high pace. As Nikhil says very rightly, “We are experiencing drastic change and additions to our colour range when it comes to bra, maintaining a versatile range to meet customers’ expectations. Customer is more specific towards their requirements now.”
Fashion trends in the bra category in 2023
2023 will be the year when one will have to decide between simplicity and extravagance when it comes to fabrics, colours, designs or dimensions (Input by Clovia)
Pastels and neutrals: With a few exceptions, colours will be more subdued in 2023 due to the dominance of normcore, resulting in an item of more understated clothing. Greys, whites and blacks, which will be the foundation of our outfit, will be prevalent everywhere. The goal is to get back to the fundamentals and adopt a more long-lasting and sustainable approach to fashion.
Prints: Designers have given prominence to prints of all kinds, with vibrant colours, fun patterns and occasionally bizarre throwback designs in response to this trend of neutral, pastel colours. 2023 will be the year when brands will play with prints and add unique patterns to their products.
Bra Tops and Layering: Earlier, we had tops and bras. We now have a brand-new category: bras that double as tops! They are a shorter variant of a crop top and bra, called bralettes in more formal parlance. They are loved by young women in particular since they are trendy and comfortable. Bralettes are preferred by 50 per cent of young women above simple tees and crop tops because of their style and manageability. They can be worn alone or even layered with coats, blazers, simple shirts, etc., because they are very adaptable and will be highly popular this year as well.
Corset Tops / Bustiers / Boyfriend Fit Tees: These are some new categories that we would like to populate this year. Korean fashion and fits is the latest rage around the globe. Taking comfort into consideration, oversized tees are a great fit for lounge and sleep categories and bustiers or corset tops will be added to the under-fashion category.