Femina Israel

Femina is an Israeli lingerie company founded in Ramat Gan in 1960 by Tzvi Blumenstein, and it is now one of the largest intimate apparel brands in Israel. The privately held, family-run company designs and sells bras, briefs, shapewear, nightwear, socks and house slippers, and it is headquartered in Petah Tikva. In 2024 it ran 52 branded stores across the country and sold through several hundred other retail points.

A shapewear patent in Ramat Gan

Femina did not start with bras. According to the Hebrew Wikipedia account of the company, its first product was shapewear made under a patent held by Blumenstein. In 1960 that meant girdles and corselettes, the firm foundation garments that most women still wore every day before the arrival of tights and the softer styles of the late 1960s. Ramat Gan, just east of Tel Aviv, was then a growing industrial town, and the young Israeli clothing industry was built largely on small family workshops of exactly this kind.

The shapewear heritage survives in the current range. Femina still sells shapewear at several compression levels, a direct descendant of the girdle, alongside the control brief and bodysuit.

The move into bras

The big change came in the 1990s, when the company shifted its focus to bra manufacturing. The bra had become the core product of the lingerie trade, and a brand selling mainly foundation garments was selling into a shrinking market. Femina built a full bra range, and it is now the heart of the business.

At the same time, production moved abroad. Femina gradually transferred its manufacturing to East Asia, and by the late 1990s it no longer made garments in Israel. That pattern was common across the Israeli textile industry, which had been a major employer in the country's early decades and lost most of its sewing work to lower-cost factories in Asia and Jordan during the 1990s. The company kept design, marketing and retail at home.

Femina Israel in the Blumenstein family's third generation

The company remains in family hands. Its management today includes Uri Gur and Dror Blumenstein, the third generation since the founder. It employs about 275 people, and the company says that 98 percent of its workforce is female, a figure unusual even in the lingerie trade. It also says it produces more than two million items a year and has been working in intimate apparel for over 60 years.

Retail is the backbone of the business. Femina's 52 branded stores in 2024 were supplemented by about 350 other points of sale, according to Hebrew Wikipedia; the company's own site gives a total of more than 400 sales points. Its Hebrew-language web shop offers a fit-finding questionnaire and customer service over WhatsApp, both aimed at the problem every bra retailer faces online, which is getting the size right.

The range

The bra offer is broad and practical. The site lists T-shirt bras, bralettes, sets, a DD+ range for fuller busts, and nursing bras, with sub-categories for minimizer, padded, push-up, wireless, unpadded, balconette, strapless, spacer and lace styles. Spacer bras, made from a breathable three-dimensional knit that holds its shape without foam, are a sensible choice for the Israeli summer. The briefs run through cotton, lace, seamless and thong cuts, often sold in multipacks.

Beyond lingerie, Femina sells nightwear, robes, bodysuits, hosiery, socks and slippers. The house shoes and socks are a reminder that this is a mass-market family brand selling to the whole household, not a boutique label.

Bar Refaeli and the celebrity face

Like many national lingerie brands, Femina has used well-known local faces in its advertising, and several Israeli celebrities have fronted the brand over the years. Since 2022 its official presenter has been the model Bar Refaeli, the best-known Israeli model internationally, a choice that signals a brand aiming at the top of its domestic market.

Year	Event
1960	Founded by Tzvi Blumenstein in Ramat Gan, making shapewear
1990s	Focus shifts to bras; production moves to East Asia
Late 1990s	Manufacturing in Israel ends
2022	Bar Refaeli becomes the brand's presenter
2024	52 branded stores in Israel

More than six decades after the girdle patent, Femina is still a family company, now in its third generation, selling bras made in Asia through a store network that covers most of Israel.

Last updated October 7, 2026