Lepel

Lepel is a British lingerie and swimwear brand that has belonged since January 2019 to Pour Moi, the Brighton-based lingerie company, which bought it together with the related business LF Intimates and the hosiery and lingerie name Charnos. Its old website, lepel.co.uk, now forwards straight to a Lepel section inside the Pour Moi store. The Lepel page itself refused automated requests, so the brand's own current description could not be read.

Much of what is said about Lepel online, including the description in this museum's own database, is hard to pin down. The safest route through its history is the public company register.

What the registry shows

Two entries at Companies House, the UK register of companies, carry the story.

The first is Lepel (UK) Limited, company number 01771192. It was incorporated on 18 November 1983, and its recorded business was the "manufacture of underwear." It did not start life with the Lepel name. It was registered as Catchcrew Limited, renamed Clutsom and Kemp Limited in 1984, which it remained until 2000, and then briefly C & K (Predecessors) Limited until 2001. Its registered office at the end was in Duffield, near Belper in Derbyshire, its last accounts covered 2010, and it was dissolved on 12 February 2013.

The register does not explain those changes, and this entry does not invent a narrative for them. What it does show is that a company called Lepel was tied to the East Midlands underwear trade, the old knitting and hosiery belt around Derby, Leicester and Nottingham, and that this company closed in 2013.

The second entry is LF Intimates Limited, company number 04450331, incorporated on 29 May 2002 and still active. Its registered office is now in Moore House on Black Lion Street in Brighton, which places it inside the Pour Moi business.

Pour Moi takes over

Pour Moi was founded in 1998 in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and later moved its head office to Brighton. It sells lingerie, swimwear, nightwear and clothing through its own websites, its shops in Chester and Leeds, and wholesale accounts such as ASOS, Next and Zalando. In January 2019 it bought Charnos and "Lepel & LF Intimates," adding two older British names to its own younger brand.

For Lepel, the result is a brand that now lives inside another brand's shop. The redirect from lepel.co.uk to a Lepel section of pourmoi.co.uk is the clearest public sign of how the label is now run: as one line within Pour Moi's own store rather than as a separate business with its own front door.

The Lepel look

The museum's earlier description presented Lepel as fashion-led lingerie and swimwear for young women, with bold colors, prints and contemporary styling at accessible prices. That is consistent with the company that owns it, which sells lingerie and swimwear through high-street and online wholesale partners rather than through specialist corsetry shops, but the brand's own wording could not be checked.

Brands at that end of the British market build their ranges from a familiar set of shapes, chiefly plunge bras, balconettes, matching briefs and high-waist briefs, refreshed each season with new prints and colors. The 19 Lepel pieces in this museum's archive are filed under the brand as they arrived.

Claims this entry could not confirm

The museum's earlier description called Lepel a British lingerie brand "with over 50 years of heritage" and "part of the Inspire Brands group." Neither claim could be confirmed. No source reached for this entry gave a founding date for the Lepel brand itself, and the registry trail starts in 1983, under other names. There is a company called Inspire Intimates Limited in Harrogate, but nothing found links it to Lepel. The documented owner is Pour Moi.

Where Lepel stands now

Lepel's own web address points to Pour Moi, and its owning company sits at a Pour Moi address in Brighton. It is now a label within a larger British lingerie business, sold beside Charnos and Pour Moi's own ranges, a long way from the Derbyshire company that once carried its name.

Last updated October 7, 2026