Besame

Besame (written Bésame in Spanish, "kiss me") is a Colombian lingerie brand founded in Medellin in 1990. It started with one shop in the city's Belen neighborhood, selling sensual lingerie, babydolls and garter sets made locally, and has grown into Grupo Besame, a family of five brands that has exported since 1993. Its flagship store now stands on Carrera 76 in Laureles.

A shop in Belen, 1990

The brand tells its own origin in a few lines. Besame was born in 1990 with a single aim, garments meant to bring out sensuality and seduction in private, made to be "luxury lingerie, elegant and sexy". The first store opened in Belen, a large residential district in the south-west of Medellin, and the company says it changed the look of lingerie and underwear in Colombia. The group's founder is described only as a former psychology student "who appreciates, values and admires women". The company has never published a name, and none appears in the press.

The year matters. Medellin had long been Colombia's textile city: Coltejer, one of the country's biggest textile companies, was founded there in 1907. In 1990 the fashion institute Inexmoda held the first Colombiamoda trade fair in the city's Palacio de Exposiciones, with about 80 exhibitors. Colombiamoda is now described as Latin America's largest fashion fair. Besame opened its doors the same year the city began selling itself as a fashion capital, during a decade when Medellin was better known abroad for cartel violence.

Exporting one piece at a time

Exports began in 1993, three years after the first shop. The company's approach to selling abroad is unusual for a lingerie maker of its size: it says it will ship a single unit to any country, and it runs separate channels for wholesale buyers, international customers and resellers. Its "Mi negocio Besame" program invites women to sell the range themselves, including by dropshipping.

Production stays at home. Besame says its garments are 100 percent Colombian, made in Medellin by women who are heads of their households. That is a claim about workforce and origin rather than a certification, but it fits a city built on textiles.

What Besame makes

The catalog leans toward the evening end of the drawer. Categories on the brand's store include bras, babydolls, bodies, sets, kimonos, pajamas, bridal pieces and garter sets with matching stockings, much of it in lace. Sets are numbered rather than named. A 2022 edit for Medellin's Flower Fair showed three Besame looks in bra sizes 32 to 38, in black and red, black and white, and wine with gold. The house has even sold a perfume, a "Besame" fragrance built on a passion-fruit extract and meant to be sprayed on lingerie.

Faces of the campaigns

Besame's catalogs and billboards have used models of many nationalities, which the company lists as Russian, Swedish, South African, Spanish, Brazilian and Colombian. Two Colombian names stand out. The twins Mariana and Camila Davalos, raised in Medellin, began their careers as teenagers in Besame campaigns before becoming well-known faces in Colombian magazines. The Barranquilla-born model Lina Posada also worked for the brand early on.

Grupo Besame and its five labels

The single shop became a group by adding brands aimed at different customers:

Year	Brand	Focus
1990	Besame	Sensual, premium lingerie
2007	Suenos Intimos	Romantic everyday pieces built around comfort
2012	Lingerie Colombia	Lower-priced sensual lingerie
2018	Cupcakes	Playful pajamas inspired by 1970s pastry shops
2021	$ Lingerie	Bolder, more erotic designs

The structure is a familiar one in Colombian intimates. Larger Colombian companies such as Leonisa and Chamela sell across the country and abroad. Besame is a smaller firm, family-scale and run from one city. It splits its offer by mood and price rather than by size range.

Besame today

Thirty-six years after the Belen shop, the brand sells through its own online store, with payment options aimed at Colombian shoppers such as PSE bank transfers and the installment service Addi, and through a retail store at Carrera 76 #33A-21 in Laureles. It still ships internationally from Medellin, and its blog is still mostly about seduction, the Flower Fair and what to wear for it, which is roughly what the first shop in Belen was selling in 1990.

Last updated October 1, 2026