Hanky Panky

The designer Gale Epstein and her friend Lida Orzeck founded Hanky Panky in New York in 1977, and the lingerie company is best known for the Signature Lace Original Rise thong it introduced in 1986. The thong, a one-size stretch lace style with a V-shaped front and back, is still made to the same pattern and is the company's most famous product among hundreds of styles.

A birthday present made from handkerchiefs

The founding story most often repeated, including in the earlier version of this entry, has Epstein sewing a lace thong from a handkerchief for a friend who exclaimed "that's quite a hanky panky". The company tells it differently. Epstein found hand-embroidered handkerchiefs at a local linen shop and turned them into a bra and bikini set, a birthday present for Orzeck. Orzeck loved the workmanship, and the two decided there was a business in it.

The division of labor was set from the start. Epstein designed an extended collection built around the embroidered hankies, and Orzeck worked on getting the line into department stores. Buyers took to it quickly. Orzeck has said the two were also making history as women running a business, which in the late 1970s was still rare.

The company describes the moment as one in which G-strings and thongs were still too taboo for department stores. That context matters for what came next.

Shoulder pads and the camisole

Before the thong there was a less remembered hit. In the early 1980s, Epstein noticed that the fashionable silhouette depended on big shoulders and wanted that shape under blouses and sweaters, so she made a camisole with built-in shoulder pads. The sales representatives were not keen, Orzeck recalls, but the piece sold well enough that the company calls it a market-changer.

1986: the Original Rise thong

In 1986 Epstein finalized the Signature Lace Original Rise thong. The company describes its key features as a V-shaped front and back, no visible panty line, and a soft, very stretchy lace. The lace is the company's own 100 percent nylon stretch lace, sheer enough to show its floral pattern, with a 100 percent cotton gusset. Orzeck has said it takes 33 yards of thread to make one thong.

The fit is the clever part. The Original Rise comes in a single size whose waistband, the company says, stretches comfortably from a US size 4 to 14, and through pregnancy. A Low Rise version covers sizes 2 to 12. A single size in a category usually sold by precise measurements sounds like a compromise. In stretch lace, it is the design.

The rolled thong

Epstein also changed how the product was sold. Instead of boxing it, the company rolled each thong into a small tube, what it calls anti-packaging, which let lifestyle shops display them by the till like candy.

Cindy Crawford and "lace butter"

The thong spread through word of mouth through the 1990s, when Hanky Panky also sold slip dresses, sheer bodysuits and other innerwear-as-outerwear pieces. Its cult status became mainstream in the summer of 2004, when a newspaper article about the thong mentioned that Cindy Crawford had been spotted buying Hanky Panky thongs in a New York boutique and described the lace as "like lace butter". Orzeck credits that moment with putting the brand on the map. The company also names Cher and Jennifer Aniston among its well-known customers.

The 1990s are also the decade in which the company says competitors began copying its styles. Its own account notes, without much bitterness, that American law gives no copyright protection to garment designs, so the only defense was to keep designing.

Hanky Panky beyond the Original Rise

Hanky Panky had been making soft lingerie since the start; Wikipedia's history of the bra names it, alongside Hanro in Switzerland, among the makers of wire-free bras emerging in the late 1970s. From the thong, the Signature Lace collection spread to full-backed panties, bralette tops, chemises, and bridal and after-dark lines. A Retro Lace range uses a wider 79 percent nylon, 21 percent spandex lace band, sometimes paired with a Supima cotton body. BreatheSoft, a nylon and Lycra microfiber knit, is knitted, dyed and finished in Italy and is used for a seamless thong. DreamEase uses Lenzing viscose for sleep and lounge pieces. A leakproof version of the famous thong won a 2026 Product of the Year USA award in the period underwear category.

The previous version of this entry said all Hanky Panky products are made in the United States. That is no longer something the company's own fabric pages support, since at least one core fabric comes from Italy, so we have dropped the claim.

A new management era

Shortly before the company's fiftieth anniversary, both founders stepped down: Epstein as creative director and Orzeck as chief executive. The brand says the Original Rise is unchanged forty years after its introduction, and its site still sells it as the world's most comfortable thong, a phrase it has trademarked.

Last updated October 7, 2026