Elomi

Elomi is a British lingerie and swimwear brand for full-figure women, launched in 2008 by the Eveden Group and now designed by Wacoal Europe from its base in Kettering, Northamptonshire. It makes bras, briefs and bra-sized swimwear in band sizes up to 48 and cup sizes up to KK in UK sizing, and its whole range starts where many mainstream ranges stop.

A company that had already bet on big cups

Elomi was a late arrival in a family of specialist brands, and its parent had been moving toward larger sizes for fifteen years before it appeared.

Eveden traces its origins to 1920, when S. D. Ryall founded the business. For most of the twentieth century it was a conventional British corsetry maker. The turn came in 1992, when a management buyout refocused the company on bigger cup sizes, a market the high street largely ignored. What followed was a run of brand launches, each aimed at a slightly different customer:

Year	Eveden brand	Position
1998	Freya	Fashion-led bras and swim for D cups and up
2000	Fantasie	Classic full-bust lingerie, early molded bras
2002	Goddess	Fuller-figure basics
2008	Elomi	Fashion lingerie for full-figure bodies

The gap Elomi filled was specific. Freya served women with a full bust on a relatively small frame. Elomi was built for women who are larger all over, which means wider bands, deeper and broader cups, and a different set of fit problems. A 44 band with a G cup carries weight differently from a 30 band with a G cup, and the patterns cannot simply be graded up.

Bra engineering for a 48 band

The standard tools of full-bust construction apply here. Seamed cups made from several pieces let a pattern cutter shape the cup around a heavier breast instead of stretching a single panel. Side support panels push tissue forward and keep it out of the armpit. Wider straps spread the load across the shoulder. Plenty of styles in this part of the market are full cup or close to it, though Elomi also sells plunge and balcony cuts.

None of this is unusual in specialist full-bust lingerie. What Elomi did was apply it to a bigger frame than most competitors were willing to cut for, and then dress it in prints, embroidery and color. The brand's own site points to named collections such as Matilda and Morgan as its signatures. For a customer whose size is hard to find, a named style that stays in the range is worth more than a new one each season, because a bra that fit last year can simply be bought again.

The swimwear follows the same logic. Elomi sells bikinis, tankinis and one-piece swimsuits sized by band and cup, with underwired tops, rather than the S-M-L sizing that fails a full-figure body at the bust.

Wacoal ownership and the move to Kettering

In 2012 Wacoal Holdings of Kyoto bought Eveden, bringing Freya, Fantasie, Goddess and Elomi into the Japanese group. The UK business became Wacoal Eveden and later Wacoal Europe, now trading as Wacoal EMEA Ltd. The company had opened a distribution center in Kettering in 2006 and centralized its operations in 2008, the same year Elomi launched.

Today every Elomi product is designed and made under Wacoal Europe, and the brand sits beside sister labels including Wacoal itself, Fantasie, Goddess and b.tempt'd.

A place on the Victoria's Secret website

In August 2022 Elomi became one of the partner brands on VS&Co-Lab, the platform through which Victoria's Secret sells other companies' lingerie on its own website. The selection used US sizing, roughly 34 to 46 bands with cups from DD to O, and the company said it took the total number of bra sizes offered on VictoriasSecret.com past 100.

For a brand founded to serve customers the big mall chains overlooked, it was an odd kind of recognition. It also showed how much the market had moved. Fourteen years after launch, the largest lingerie retailer in America was buying in sizes from a specialist in Northamptonshire rather than cutting its own.

Last updated October 7, 2026