See if this sounds familiar: You wake up. You shower and go to your underwear drawer to get dressed for the day. You rummage through the many MANY pairs of sexy pieces you’ve bought over the years. Why HAVE you bought so many, you wonder? Why do you never actually wear them? Why, despite hating how frumpy they make you feel, does your hand always reach for the comfy, reliable granny pants you’ve had for years?

Like clockwork your subconscious starts chipping away at your self-esteem: why do other people get to wear the sexy pieces without any issues? Companies wouldn’t  make clothes that don’t fit real bodies, would they? So it must be you. Your body is wrong. Is your vulva too big? How would you know? It certainly isn’t fully covered by the gussets in the other pairs of knickers in your drawer. Would surgery help? If only the gussets could be a few centimetres wider. And longer. You’re sick of ending up with discharge missing the gusset because it sits too far back. Why is no one else talking about this? Your mate jokingly talked about an uncomfy  ‘flap-floss’ situation once while drunk, but that was it. Is it just you? Is it?

Friend, it is not. It is MANY of us.

WHY?
It’s kind of impressive (albeit insidious) how a whole industry has successfully managed to convince millions of women the world over that if there IS an issue with clothing fit, it’s our problem, not the industry’s. In a society where the topic of vulvas is still largely taboo - even among close friends - the industry can rest assured that women will internalize this shame, blame their bodies and stay quiet, never questioning why the clothing they’re spending their hard-earned money on doesn’t actually fit.

COSTS
The companies are laughing all the way to the bank. Cutting a few centimetres from the length and width of a gusset saves them money. Plain and simple. 

MALE GAZE
Many lingerie designers are male, and this has a significant impact on what gets produced. The male gaze often dictates the standards of beauty and desirability, leading to designs that prioritize aesthetics over comfort and function. In mainstream pornography, we frequently see a narrow representation of vulvas- often resembling a prepubescent look - which informs how garments are styled and sized. This lack of understanding and representation for real, diverse bodies is why the lingerie industry largely fails to meet the needs of those who wear them. It creates a disconnect that leaves women feeling inadequate, as if their bodies do not align with the industry’s standards. This pervasive influence means that the designs are often made for an idealized version of femininity, one that does not account for the varied, beautiful realities of actual women.

HOW WE’VE SOLVED THE PROBLEM
Before we even founded Avluv, we knew two things:

1. Women were in need of longer and wider gussets. After all, we had been desperately searching for them for years ourselves.
2. Women were sick of having granny-pants as their only comfy option.

With this in mind, we set about designing underwear with gusset proportions that actually fit real vulvas—not the mythical sizes the rest of the industry designs for. We believe that comfort shouldn’t have to come at the cost of style. Our underwear doesn’t shun beauty for the sake of comfort; we understand that women want both so we design for both.

WHAT NOW?
It’s time to reclaim our comfort and confidence. The lingerie industry might have left us feeling uncomfortable in our knickers for far too long, but we’re here to change that narrative. We deserve pieces that fit our bodies, not the other way around, so it’s time to demand better from the industry. Feeling comfortable in our own skin - and our choice of underwear - shouldn’t be a luxury; it should be the norm. We’re here to make that happen.