Harper Wilde

Harper Wilde is an American direct-to-consumer bra and underwear brand, launched in 2017 by two women who met shortly before business school. It started with three plainly named everyday bras sold online with free home try-on, and it now sells T-shirt bras, wireless styles and briefs made through a long-standing factory partner in Sri Lanka.

Harper Lee and Laura Ingalls Wilder

The earlier version of this entry said the name honored Harper Lee and Oscar Wilde. The brand's own 2018 story page says otherwise: the name was inspired by Harper Lee and Laura Ingalls Wilder, two American writers, and tied to the company's stated focus on girls' education. Wilder, not Wilde, is the second half of the joke.

That page also tells the founding story. It began, the founders wrote, with a question: why are bras so expensive? That led to others. Why is the bra business so sexualized, why do everyday bras carry so much decoration, and why is a product made for women so often marketed to men? The founders say they met shortly before business school and bonded over, among other things, beef jerky. The earlier entry named them as Jenna Kerner and Jane Fisher; the brand's own pages we checked do not give their names, and we could not confirm where the company was first based.

The Base, the Boost and the Flex

Harper Wilde's launch range was deliberately small. In 2018 its site sold three bras: The Base, an everyday lightly lined bra; The Boost, an everyday push-up bra; and The Flex, an everyday strapless bra. The founders said they had talked to hundreds of women about which features they wanted and which they did not, then worked with experienced intimates designers to build bras around the answers.

Early press quotes on the homepage praised exactly what the founders were selling: no frills, front-adjustable straps, a light and soft feel, and a range of skin-tone shades. One reviewer called it pretty no-frills and predicted that was why it would work.

The pitch was "bra shopping without the B.S.", a size chart presented as "easy as A, B, C, DD", and fair prices made possible by selling direct and cutting out the middlemen. The brand added a pointed aside about why men run the industry anyway.

Three bras, seven days

The service model was home try-on. Customers could pick any three bras to try at home for free, had seven days to decide, kept what fit and sent the rest back with a prepaid label included in the box. For a product as fit-dependent as a bra, the idea is sound: the fitting room moves to the bedroom, and the company pays the postage.

Free shipping started at $50 in 2018 and stood at $75 by the mid-2020s, with free returns throughout.

Lift Up the Ladies

Social purpose was built into the brand from the start, under the slogan Lift Up the Ladies. In 2018 Harper Wilde named The Girl Project its social impact partner and donated part of each purchase to help girls attend primary school. It now gives 1 percent of proceeds to Girls Inc., the American nonprofit for girls.

The manufacturing side gets the same attention. Before producing a single bra, the founders flew to visit their factory and spent a week working there, and they chose it partly for its sustainable supply chain work and its program for women employees. Through that long-standing partnership in Sri Lanka, the brand now says, it funds water, sanitation, supplies and scholarships at the schools of workers' children.

The earlier version of this entry described a "Harper Wilde Project" that donated returned bras to shelters. We found no trace of that program on the company's pages. What exists now is a take-back offer to recycle old bras and underwear.

Harper Wilde now

The current range has grown well past three bras but keeps the low-decoration logic. The homepage leads with a $48 T-shirt bra and an all-day balconette, alongside wireless styles. Underwear arrived later and sells in multipacks, three for $39 at the time of writing, in fabrics and cuts such as Cloud Cotton, the Bliss French-cut brief and an invisible high-waist brief.

The company now describes itself as female-founded and female-led and sums up its product in one line: bras and underwear designed to be forgotten.

Last updated October 7, 2026