Lauma Lingerie

Lauma Lingerie is a Latvian lingerie brand based in Liepaja, the port city on the country's Baltic coast. It dates its history to 1971, when bras and underwear under the Lauma name were first made in the city's new Soviet textile works, and it took its current name, Lauma Lingerie, in 2005. It makes bras, briefs, swimwear, shapewear and loungewear, and is one of the best-known lingerie names in the Baltic states.

Its story is tied to a much larger company, the textile manufacturer Lauma, which still operates one of Europe's biggest lingerie fabric mills in the same city.

A factory in a closed city

Under Soviet rule Liepaja was a closed city because of its military port. Construction was slow for decades. That changed in the 1970s, when new factories went up, among them Lauma, an agricultural machinery plant and the Hidrolats works, along with new housing districts.

Lauma's own timeline gives 1969 as the creation of AS Lauma as a state enterprise. Its fabrics division says the mill was established in the early 1970s to supply textiles throughout the Soviet Union. The lingerie line followed in 1971.

Named after a Baltic spirit

The name comes from Latvian mythology. Lauma was originally a goddess of earth and childbirth, who in later folklore turned into a witch-like figure. The lingerie brand describes her more kindly, as a fairy, and says the name became famous throughout the Soviet Union. For a women's underwear brand it was a well-chosen name: old, female and local.

Lauma Lingerie after independence

Latvia regained independence in 1991. In 1994 AS Lauma was privatized. Today the two are presented separately: the textile company sells fabrics to other brands, while the lingerie business runs its own consumer label.

In 2005 that label was renamed LAUMA LINGERIE, with its base in Liepaja. The brand says it continues "the best traditions of Latvian design and production" and describes itself as a leading designer and producer of fashion lingerie in the Baltics.

What the brand sells

The current range covers wireless, underwired, push-up and bralette styles, briefs and strings, seamless and lace panties, loungewear and sleepwear, swimwear and shapewear. It sells through its own shops and stockists, mainly in the Baltic region, and through its website.

The Lauma Fabrics mill

The fabric side of Lauma is where the industrial scale lies. The company describes its Liepaja site as a single building of about 100,000 square meters. Lauma Fabrics knits and finishes elastic warp-knit fabrics, rigid warp-knits, circular-knit elastics, lace, embroidery and narrow elastic bands, and makes molded bra cups. It says it produces more than 50 million meters of fabric a year and ships to about 200 companies in 20 countries.

Investment has continued since privatization:

Year	Step
2013	Acquired TeleTextile Europe, an elastic fabrics maker in Germany
2014 to 2015	Invested 6.4 million euros in modernizing its dye house
2017	Acquired Avangard
2019	Created Lauma Medical, for compression and medical textiles

The company calls itself the leading lingerie textiles producer in Europe. Whether or not that ranking holds, it means a lingerie brand in Liepaja has a large fabric supplier in the same city, which is unusual for a Baltic label.

A medical sideline

Lauma Medical sells compression products, elastic bandages, medical corsets and maternity and nursing underwear. It says the Lauma Medical name has been familiar to pharmacists for more than 45 years, which places its roots in the Soviet period as well.

Soviet brands that survived

Lauma belongs to a short list of Soviet-era lingerie names that are still trading. The closest parallel is Belarus's Milavitsa, another factory brand from the planned economy that kept its name after 1991. Both had the same advantage: decades of name recognition across a huge market, and factories that could keep producing when new private competitors had none.

Today the lingerie label and the fabric mill share a name, a city and a history that begins in a closed naval port in the early 1970s. The brand says it has more than 40 years of professional experience; the Lauma mill in the same city is still knitting lace.

Last updated October 7, 2026