Being a woman is hard, first we are expected to be a boss and a mom and anything else the world needs, but then we have to be stunning while we do it. Fashion, especially lingerie, has been notoriously designed by men to make women sexy and very uncomfortable. But what if I could tell you that we actually can have the best of both worlds (plus help the environment at the same time), and, spoiler, women made it happen! Meet Stripe & Stare! Stripe & Stare focuses on sustainable lounge and underwear that is not only comfortable, but it is super cute. They celebrate their knicker/bikini design, which personally is my go to cut (very flattering!), but also use an array of fun fabric designs like tie-dye and colorful patterns. If the knicker isn’t your jam, they offer all the rest of the typical cuts in many of the same patterns. If this hasn’t convinced you, let me tell you about how soft and sustainable these fabrics are..

First, Stripe & Stare was kind enough to send me some samples to try out, so I personally know the level of softness. Now, I am typically a cotton girl, but I can honestly tell you that the TENCEL (which is 100% sustainable and made from trees) is one of the softest fabrics I have ever touched. Not only are the colorful panties silky smooth and very cute, but I now officially live in their Lightweight Jogger. These pants are comfortable enough to sleep in, but can be dressed up if you want to take them out to the beach or a park. They also come with pockets, just saying.

Anyway, enough from me, Jejune was lucky enough to dive deeper with Co-Founder Katie Lopes. Please check out our exclusive interview below.

Where are you based?
We are based in the UK – I am usually somewhere between London and the south west of England in Devon, which is deep countryside, and where we have our main office.

Jejune loves Stripe & Stare! What inspired the creation of the brand?
I set out to create the most comfortable knicker (you guys know it as bikini underwear!) in the world. I was a fashion buyer, and couldn’t understand why there wasn’t any everyday underwear that was made for women by women, that wasn’t super sexy (so really mostly designed for men) or was really boring and dowdy. I decided to make it myself, and that’s how Stripe & Stare was born.

It seems like every step of your production from product to packaging has sustainability in mind. Why is being sustainable so important to you?
When I began to research and design the initial product it was in 2006, and this is when we were waking up to the damage that fashion was causing to the planet. Underwear is a category that you cannot buy second hand; so, it felt incredibly important that we did things in the right purposeful way. Finding the TENCEL fibers was a real breakthrough in the research — they were the softest we had found, made from FSC tree sources and totally biodegradable — from nature, back to nature. From there, it was a natural evolution to look at the way we worked in every way: from our manufacturing partners to our packaging to the way we ship our online orders. Everything you receive from us is in biodegradable packaging. All the hard work is constantly rewarded by our customers and in July we received B Corp status!

Love love love all the colors and prints you use! Why is it important for Stripe & Stare to break the mold of sustainable clothing being boring?
Our goal is for sustainability to become mainstream. For us it is not nice to be sustainable, but essential. We wanted to create a product that we all use and wear everyday that did not compromise on design, quality and comfort — everyone wants to do better for the planet, but we all lead busy lives so making this small switch in your underwear drawer is one way to do a little better. But no one wants to compromise in their switch so our product had to stand up for itself on quality and comfort as well. And why should underwear be boring! We hear all the time from big corporate women who wear suits to work, but have their hot pink knickers underneath that it seriously brightens their day.

According to your site only 2% of underwear is sustainably sourced! Is this why you decided to focus on lounge and underwear?
I became fascinated with underwear after years of selling fashion. I love how loyal women are to their favorite underwear brands. And when I read the statistics on the lack of sustainability in underwear manufacturing, it felt like a massive oversight for an everyday garment. It was very clear that there was a massive gap for cool everyday underwear for women that was comfortable and super flattering that also did better for the planet.

You use TENCEL™ Modal for most of your clothing. Can you tell us a bit about TENCEL™ Modal? Where does it come from? Why is it sustainable?
We are obsessed with TENCEL, and could write an essay on why we love it so much.

Is TENCEL™ Modal a new product? We haven’t heard much about it. Why isn’t everyone using it?
Tencel actually just celebrated its 30th Anniversary — we visited their office and factory in Austria for the party. We love it primarily for the following reasons — as I mentioned above the biodegradability, its certification for being so kind to skin, it is certified safe for newborn babies, the production plant which is carbon neutral, and well on its way to being carbon zero, the tree sources are totally replenished, 99.9% of the raw materials are used and everything from the water to the chemicals used in the process are reused.

Their mission is for TENCEL to become a household name and you are seeing it appear more and more. Our research (and that of independents such as the Higg Index) is that it is the most sustainable fiber around today. More so than organic cotton (uses so much land and water) or bamboo (uses a lot of chemicals in the production process that cannot be recycled).

Oh my god is TENCEL™ Modal soft! What makes it so soft?
The actual production process is really secret, but it is this process that turns wood into the softest fibers around! Fabric softness is measured in the coolest way with an abrasion machine, this monitors the sound given off the fabric when it is rubbed so it is literally how much noise the fabric gives off that is measured. The less noise given off, the softer the fabric!

What is the production like for TENCEL™ Modal?
The Austria production plant literally has a river running through it with fresh fish, surrounded by forests, lakes and clear blue skies. It is like a mini paradise and as far from what we probably all have in mind when we think of industrial factories. The process is totally carbon neutral and they think of everything from solar powered energy to zero waste to recycling all the chemicals and water used in the process.

Not only are the European Beech trees used for your clothing being replanted as they are cut down, but you are also partnered with Ecologi, which plants a tree in Madagascar with every order placed with you. Why was this important to you?
One thing to address was the actual energy needed to get the customer orders from our warehouse to the customer — there is no way to avoid using delivery services for this, so to offset this we plant a tree for every order. We will soon be at 100k trees in our very own Madagascan rainforest!

In addition to helping plant trees, you like to team up with organizations that help empower women. Why is this important to you?
In our early days, a Stripe & Stare prototype was picked by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum – they ran an underwear retrospective which showed how women’s underwear had mirrored the women’s liberation movement through the last 150 years. They picked us as representing the future of underwear as we had the fun comfortable styles that liberate the wearer, and we do everything sustainably. I am a single mom raising two children, one of whom is a 13 year old girl. I want her to grow up believing and knowing that she is just as good and equal to any man.

Only 1% of investment money in the UK goes to female led businesses — we need to all have the confidence to believe that we are as capable as anyone else. I think women are really bad at having this confidence. So for us, underwear is a symbol of strength. Underwear you can pull on, forget you are wearing and take on the day. After all, nothing great was ever achieved in uncomfortable underwear. I love that we are able to help inspire other women in business, and that we get to support female charities in cancer research and Smart Works, which helps women get back into the workforce.

You are currently supporting the Lorraine 'NoButts' campaign, teaming up with Deborah James in order to raise awareness of the symptoms of bowel cancer. Why did you decide to partner with this nonprofit?
They came to us as it was such a natural tie in — underwear and bowel cancer research. We LOVED being part of such a revolutionary campaign that really raised awareness around this type of cancer. It is a privilege to be able to give back in a small way.

Do you have a favorite product?
Our hero knicker will always be my favorite, and I love some of the collaborations we have done with other female led brands like LoveShackFancy and Kerri Rosenthal. Those partnerships always make me smile in the morning.

Where can we find your designs?
Through our website, and we sell to major retailers such as Shopbop, Revolve, and Bloomingdales.

Covid was hard on fashion. Did you have to make any changes due to the pandemic? Are you back to normal?
We were so unbelievably lucky that we were able to keep filling online orders through the pandemic. Comfort became a really important part of people’s lives during this time, so our business remained strong. We are just finding our way through what normal looks like following that mad time.

What is your motto in life?
Slow and steady. Our seed investor always says this to me. I have a million things to do each day with the business and my children, so just one thing at a time is the only way I get through.

To learn more about Stripe & Stare, please follow them via the platforms below:
www.stripeandstare.com
Instagram: @stripeandstare
TikTok: @stripeandstare

Photography courtesy of Stripe & Stare.

Stripe & Stare - Adorably Saving The Planet In Comfort