6IXTY8IGHT

6IXTY8IGHT is a fashion lingerie retailer headquartered in Hong Kong, founded in 2002 by the Swedish entrepreneur Erik Ryd. Its first collection was presented in Paris, its first shop opened in Beijing in 2003, and it now trades through roughly 200 to 300 stores across Greater China, South Korea and Southeast Asia, selling bras, panties, sleepwear and loungewear at high-street prices.

A factory owner opens a shop

The usual story of a lingerie label runs from designer to workshop to store. 6IXTY8IGHT ran it backwards. Erik Ryd had already built Hop Lun, a bra and intimates manufacturer he founded in Hong Kong in 1992. By 2022 that business ran 12 factories in Bangladesh, China, Indonesia and Ethiopia, employed more than 30,000 people and turned out about 94 million garments a year for other people's labels. Ryd knew exactly what a bra cost to make. What he wanted was his own counter.

The brand's own account says Ryd saw room in Asia for a younger, more playful lingerie label than the department-store brands then on offer. He worked with the French lingerie designer Marie Destombe on a first ready-to-wear collection, launched it in Paris in 2002, and then turned east. In 2003 the company set up its headquarters in Hong Kong and opened its first store in Beijing, not in Hong Kong itself. Mainland China was the market he was chasing from the start.

What the name means

The name is a number, 68, written out with digits standing in for letters. In Cantonese, six and eight said together sound close to a phrase meaning "forever luck", and eight is the most auspicious number in Chinese numerology. For a brand aimed at shoppers in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, it was a sensible piece of naming: easy to read in any alphabet, and pleasant to say aloud.

How 6IXTY8IGHT sells lingerie

The format is a small, bright mall unit stocked with matching sets, wireless styles, push-up bras, printed briefs, sleepwear and a growing rail of loungewear and casual clothes. Prices sit well below the European imports that share the same malls. The stock turns over often, which is the point: a shopper who comes back in three weeks should find something new.

Owning the factories behind the label is the quiet advantage. A retailer that buys from a supplier waits on that supplier's calendar. A retailer whose founder also built one of the region's largest intimates manufacturers can, at least in principle, move a new cup shape or lace color from sample to shelf faster than a brand that has to place an order on the other side of the world. The company has never published how much of its range Hop Lun makes, so that link is best read as context rather than a confirmed supply chain.

Bras cut for the home market

The core customer is a young woman in East or Southeast Asia, and the size runs and cup shapes reflect that market rather than a European fit block. Molded cups, light padding and wireless bras make up much of the range, which puts 6IXTY8IGHT in direct competition with newer Chinese comfort-first labels such as Ubras as well as with the big international chains.

From Beijing to Jakarta

Growth came store by store across Greater China first. By 2020 the company described itself as operating more than 200 stores across mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. A 2022 report on Hop Lun put the 6IXTY8IGHT estate at about 300 stores. The two figures come from different years and different sources, so the honest summary is "a few hundred".

The past six years have been about reaching new countries without signing a lease first:

• June 2020: an online store for Japan opened on 20 June, with physical retail planned to follow.
• 2020: e-commerce launched in Thailand.
• 2022: the first physical store in Southeast Asia outside Singapore and Malaysia opened in Vietnam, through a partnership with Thai Tuan Group.
• September 2023: the first Indonesian store opened in Mall of Indonesia, Jakarta, run with the local partner Erajaya Active Lifestyle, with six more planned for cities including Surabaya and Makassar.

The company also moved onto regional marketplaces such as Shopee. It began shifting weight toward e-commerce in late 2019, and the pandemic lockdowns of early 2020 sped that up.

Ownership and leadership

6IXTY8IGHT is privately held and does not publish revenue. Its manufacturing sister changed hands in 2022, when Platinum Equity bought a controlling stake in Hop Lun and Ryd kept a significant minority share. The retail brand was reported as a separate business. Day-to-day leadership has passed to professional management, and Jacqueline Porje has been interviewed in the trade press as the company's chief executive.

The result is one of the few Asian lingerie chains built by somebody who already made bras for Western labels. Most of the big names it competes with in Asian malls, from Victoria's Secret to the Italian chains, design in one country and sell in another. 6IXTY8IGHT designs, sources and sells inside the same region, and its store map from Beijing to Jakarta follows the route its customers already shop.

Last updated October 7, 2026