When Sara Blakely snipped the feet off of her stomach-controlling tights, she sparked a revolution that would make her the first self-made woman billionaire.
Keen to fit into a pair of white trousers for a party and reluctant to wear a girdle, she engineered her own makeshift shapewear shorts with nothing but a pair of scissors and a vision.
Two years and many prototypes later, she launched SPANX. Now, after a quarter of a century, the impact her shapewear has had on the fashion world and female body image is unfathomable.
‘SPANX didn’t just redefine an undergarment; it created an entire category within fashion,’ personal stylist Lisa Talbot tells Metro.
Stylist Shauna Flavin agrees: ‘We call it SPANX, rather than shapewear – the two are synonymous – it’s the same with brands like Hoover and Sellotape.
‘I can’t think of any other clothing brand that saw a gap in the market and filled it so well.’
Cinching women like never before
It wasn’t that shapewear, in a sense, didn’t exist, it just had never really been designed for the everyday woman.
‘Shapewear before SPANX was quite uncomfortable, old-fashioned, and frankly, not made with real women in mind,’ Lisa explains. ‘It was restrictive and often unflattering.’
Early records of shapewear include decorative metal girdles worn by Hellenic Greeks in 356BCE to achieve an hourglass look, while the Middle Ages saw women wear tightly laced bodices covered in paste – they were painful and impractical.
In the Elizabethan era, steel corsets flattened the chest and made the torso look cylindrical, not hourglass. This was flipped on its head in the Victorian era where corsets, often made from whalebone or steel, were used to create tiny waistlines and big busts.
Then from the 1940s, nylon and polyester whalebone girdles were used to cinch everything in, until Sara Blakely came alone.
‘She brought innovation, lightweight fabrics, clever compression, and practical designs that worked under modern clothes,’ Lisa says. ‘It was a real gamechanger.
‘For the first time, women had access to shapewear that actually worked, it smoothed without restricting, and made clothes feel and look better instantly. It made the concept of shapewear accessible and appealing to every woman, not just something your mother wore.’
Selling shame or confidence?
Shapewear shouldn’t be shameful, although it’s not always been viewed in the most flattering light.
You could argue part of its bad rep came from Bridget Jones shimmying into her ‘granny pants’ in 2001, to attract the slick Daniel Cleaver, only to be mortified when he finds them in a steamy make out session.
‘That turned shapewear into a bit of a punchline, something women wore in secret and hoped no one ever saw,’ Lisa explains. ‘It reflected how society viewed it then: a necessary but slightly shameful thing.
‘But behind that humour was the truth that most women were wearing it, they just didn’t want to admit it.’
Some questioned whether we should be altering our bodies at all; doesn’t the concept of shapewear feed into toxic beauty standards?
‘Early shapewear was associated with hiding, disguising, or “fixing” our bodies. It came with the message that we needed to change to look acceptable, which naturally carried some negativity,’ Lisa adds.
‘Over time though, that narrative has evolved, it’s now more about enhancing comfort, improving fit, and celebrating your silhouette rather than concealing it.’
But, for stylist Shauna, it was never about ‘hiding our bodies’. ‘It was about making us feel more confident,’ she tells Metro. ‘It simply helps clothes fit a little better, it’s not trying to create a body shape that isn’t natural to that person, like steel-boned corsets did.
‘Personally, when I put on a pair of SPANX, I just feel more put together – it’s like an extra layer of confidence and protection before you go out and face the world.’
From funny to fashion
Flash forward to 2025, and shapewear in no longer a Bridget Jones punchline… it’s chic.
It was SPANX that paved the way for the likes of Skims, the $4billion Kim Kardashian fashion brand which made ‘granny pants’ de rigeur. In fact, it made shapewear the outfit, rather than an undergarment.
‘Sara Blakely walked so Skims could run,’ Shauna says. ‘Skims has been successful because it’s so inclusive of sizes and skin tones. Whatever you think about the Kardashians, the brand has been really effective.’
We’ve seen Skims donned by the likes of Billy Eilish and Kate Moss, with the same cinching materials now being used to make basic dresses, tops and bottoms, circumventing the need for ‘granny pants’ altogether.
‘It reframed shapewear as a lifestyle product rather than a secret in September 2019, it made it modern, inclusive, and desirable,’ Lisa adds.
‘The marketing focused on confidence, comfort, and empowerment – not correction. The rise of social media and body diversity also played a huge role. Suddenly, shapewear wasn’t hidden; it was part of the aesthetic.’
But it wasn’t just Skims that benefitted from the Spanx revolution.Lizzo joined the conversation when she founded her shapewear brand Yitty in 2022, in partnership with Fabletics, and was just another brand Lisa says the noughties company ‘opened the door for’.
An everyday essential
Sara Blakely may have sold her majority share of SPANX to private equity giant Blackstone back in 2021, but by then, the undergarments were already wardrobe staples.
Just over a decade after launching, the hosiery company had been making 20% profit margins on a whopping average of $250 million of annual sales.
While Covid saw sales drop by 24% and the company decreased in value, it still remains the mother of shapewear.
There are more than 45 different SPANX shapewear products and more than 27 bra types on offer. Perhaps stylist Shauna says it best: ‘Quite simply, Sara was a pioneer.’
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