Loud on purpose.
REND makes printed underwear in New York and Porto. Six prints a year, a waistband printed all the way round, and nothing restocked once it sells out.
The band is the product
Every pair of printed underwear we owned had the same flaw: a loud body and a blank waistband. The print stopped at the seam, and the band — the only part anyone else ever sees — was a length of grey elastic with a woven label sewn on top.
So we made the band the loudest part. A solid-colour elastic tape, colour-matched to the print, with the REND wordmark dead centre and a roundel badge at each end. No woven label stitched over the top, no blank patch at the back, no crack at the fold line after ten washes.
The rest is deliberately conventional: boxer briefs, trunks, a boy short, a thong. Cuts people already know, in fabrics that already work. The print is the only thing we argue about.
Four years, plainly
A sample run of 60
One print, one cut, sold to friends out of a studio in Brooklyn. The band was blank — we did not have the equipment to print elastic yet.
The first printed band
A heat-set press in Porto and eleven months of testing. The first version cracked at the fold after 14 washes. Version four got to 60.
Six prints, one archive
We stopped doing colourways and started doing drawings. Six a year, each printed once, each archived when it sells out.
Three leg lengths
7", 5" and 3", plus the women's cuts. Same band on all of them — it is the one thing that never changes.
How the prints get made
Every print starts as a drawing, not a stock vector. A tiger, an eagle, a crowned bulldog, a coil of snakes, a flame repeat, a scatter of skulls and hand-bones — six drawings a year, and we live with each one for a month before it goes to screen.
Colours are separated by hand, which is why there are no gradients and no photographic textures. Flat ink on flat ground stays sharp at any scale, and it survives the heat press that puts it into the fabric.
Where it is made
Cut and sewn in Porto, Portugal, by a factory that has been making underwear for four decades. Printed in the same building. Fulfilled from Newark, New Jersey for North America and from Rotterdam for the UK and EU.
What we will not do
- Restock an archived print. Not for a big order, not for a wholesale account.
- Put a woven label over the printed band.
- Sell a "mystery" pack that hides which print you are getting.
- Run a countdown timer on a product that will still be there tomorrow.
Wholesale and press: contact the studio.
Three for $87.
Pick any three pieces, any prints, any sizes. It is the cheapest way to work out which cut you actually wear.
Build a 3-pack