Everything you need to know about: Chantelle

Chantelle is a family owned French lingerie brand founded in 1876. First specialising in elasticized fabrics for orthopaedic uses, the company quickly found its true calling by creating girdles and lingerie. Today, Chantelle aims to celebrate beauty in all its forms.

Origins

In 1876, while women were tightly corseted, François Auguste Gamichon opened a company in Paris manufacturing stockings, lap belts and elasticized fabrics using a knitted material incorporating vulcanized rubber. This new stretch fabric allowed corset makers to offer products that were more comfortable.

Evolution

After partnering with Paul-Maurice Kretz, the company launched the “Kretz tulle” and started exporting to South America, while also winning gold and silver medals at the World’s Fairs all over Europe. In 1949, the brand Chantelle as we know it today was born: a brand that focused on girdles and later on, bras and the rest of the lingerie range. An innovation oriented brand, Chantelle launched the first moulded seamless bra on the market in 1972. The tee-shirt bra and the Soft Stretch line soon completed the offer. Soft Stretch is the first one-size-fits-all seamless underwear line, adaptable to any morphology.

News

For Chantelle, as with many other brands, eco-conception is a major challenge. Since 2021, the brand has offered Chantelle One, its first 100 percent recyclable and zero waste bra, that can be sent back once you don’t want to wear it anymore. The Chantelle group now consists of the brands Chantelle, Passionata, Chantal Thomass, Livera, Darjeeling and Femilet. 4,500 people currently work for the group in 10,000 selling points all over the world, with a turnover of 370 million euros in 2019, according to the brand’s website.