Commando

Commando is an American underwear and bodywear brand founded in 2003 by Kerry O'Brien, a former public relations executive, and based in South Burlington, Vermont. Its first and best-known product is a raw-cut panty with no elastic and no trim, made to leave no line under thin clothes, and it has become a standard piece of backstage kit at New York Fashion Week.

The name is the joke. "Going commando" means wearing no underwear at all, and the brand's pitch is that its underwear feels and looks as close to that as possible.

A PR executive leaves on September 12

O'Brien was a senior vice president at a large financial PR firm in New York when she resigned, at 30, on the morning after the September 11 attacks. She had no plan. In an essay for Time in 2018 she wrote that she toyed with writing a book about underwear, then realized she had a favorite brand for almost everything she wore except underwear. She had no design training and no contacts in intimate apparel.

The first product under the Commando name was not underwear. It was Takeouts, a line of removable cleavage enhancers packed in Chinese-food-style cartons. That gave her an introduction to New York fabric mills, and when she began asking why underwear edges had to be finished at all, some of them already knew her.

The raw edge nobody would make

Her question was simple: why not cut the fabric raw and leave it? Most of the trade told her it could not be done; a cut edge on ordinary knit fabric runs and curls. Eventually a supplier said it knew how. The result was a panty in a fabric that could be cut without unraveling, with no elastic band to dig in and no seam allowance to show through a slip dress.

Commando launched with two microfiber styles. Raw-cut thongs and seamless briefs made on the same principle remain staples of the line twenty years later.

Made in Vermont, not New York

O'Brien grew up in Vermont and moved back after about a decade in New York with her husband, Ed Biggins, a former investment banker who works in the business. Commando's office and a 15,000-square-foot warehouse in South Burlington handle samples, shipping and distribution. The company has said it uses European technical fabrics and cuts and sews its garments in the United States rather than overseas.

That choice was tested in 2008. As retailers canceled orders during the financial crisis, Commando kept its production partners running even though inventory piled up, on the reasoning that if those factories closed they would not be there for the recovery. O'Brien called it the only logical risk available.

Fashion Week by word of mouth

The runway connection began with a phone call. Designer Erin Fetherston told O'Brien she loved the underwear and wanted it, invisible, under her show. Jill Stuart, Milly and Prabal Gurung followed. In 2012 O'Brien was nominated to the Council of Fashion Designers of America, one of very few lingerie designers in its membership.

By 2023 the company said it had appeared on more than 150 New York Fashion Week runways, making custom pieces for 17 to 20 designers a season, among them Rodarte, Proenza Schouler and Jason Wu. O'Brien has said those are not paid placements: Commando does not pay stylists, influencers or celebrities. The same invisible underwear is a red-carpet staple, which has put the brand in Oscar-night coverage, including a 2018 Forbes feature on what stars wore underneath.

From panties to bodywear

The range now reaches well beyond the original thong:

• Butter, a soft modal line that became its best-seller
• bras, slips, camisoles, shapewear and hosiery
• bodysuits, leggings and pants
• skirts, dresses, shirts and, from 2020, denim

In 2024 Commando added a full men's collection in three fabric families: Essential, a men's version of Butter; Classic, in Italian microfiber; and Ultimate, a bonded microfiber with bonded edges.

First shop in SoHo

For its first two decades Commando sold through department stores, boutiques and its own website. In September 2023, on the eve of its 20th anniversary, it opened its first retail space, a pop-up at 75 Greene Street in New York's SoHo.

Commando sits in the same comfort-first market that Spanx opened from the shapewear side, though O'Brien's starting point was the opposite of compression. Her rule was that underwear should be judged by how it feels, then how it fits, and only then how it looks. The raw edge was her answer to all three.

Last updated October 7, 2026