Hom

Hom was founded in Marseille in 1968 by Charles Belpaume and Gilbert Anselme. Belpaume, who ran a women's underwear factory in the city, applied techniques and materials developed for lingerie — finer fabrics, closer construction, integrated support — to men's underwear at a time when the category was still dominated by plain cotton briefs. Early Hom designs introduced mini briefs and support features not previously seen in menswear, under the stated idea that there was no reason men's underwear should not also be elegant. The brand kept innovating through later decades, including the HOM HO1 in 1997, the first men's underwear built with a horizontal rather than vertical opening. Hom has changed hands more than once: it was previously part of the Triumph group before Austria's Huber Group acquired it in 2015, and it now distributes in more than twenty countries worldwide.