Milavitsa

Milavitsa is a Belarusian lingerie maker based in Minsk, the best-known bra brand of the former Soviet Union and a market leader in Belarus and Russia. Its factory dates its origins to 1908, but for its first half-century it made combs and buttons, not underwear; lingerie became its business only in 1964, and the Milavitsa name dates from 1991.

The Frenchmen's comb factory, 1908

On 8 November 1908 the Minsk provincial government gave permission for a haberdashery factory to two French brothers, Jean and Francois-Victor Tournier-Collet. The company history today simply credits "a Frenchman, Francois Tournier". The plant made celluloid combs for women, men's hair combs and buttons, and was modern for its time, with its own 25-horsepower dynamo for electric light.

By 1913 it had about 200 workers, including 18 French engravers, and produced combs worth some 254,000 roubles a year. Local merchants and engineers had joined the partnership by then. The First World War ended the venture: the factory was evacuated in 1915 with its machinery and most of its staff, and in 1917 the empty buildings were wrecked and later nationalized.

The previous version of this entry described the 1908 business as a corset workshop. It was not, and the company's own timeline is clear on the point.

Combs, raincoats and then bras

Soviet haberdashery

In 1925 former employees formed a cooperative, Spartak, making combs, buttons and small household goods on the old site. In 1929 it was absorbed into a new state factory called Beloruska, and in 1932 the plant was named after the Red Army commander Mikhail Frunze. German bombing on 23 June 1941 destroyed its main workshops.

Rebuilt from 1945 in the half-ruined premises of a former yeast works, the factory took on whatever was needed: from 1950 it made leatherette bags, rubberized raincoats and children's capes; from 1960, buckles, buttons and men's checked shirts.

1961 to 1964: the switch to lingerie

In 1961 the factory began making corsetry, girdles and corselettes, at first copying samples of foreign products supplied through the Belarusian trade ministry. In 1964 it changed its entire range and became a lingerie factory. Its own design workshop now developed every model, and, according to the factory history, the designers sometimes modeled the pieces themselves. In 1968 it exported part of its output for the first time.

In 1969 the plant was renamed Komsomolka, a Minsk sewing association making bras, girdles and corselettes in silk, cotton and stretch fabrics, along with baby clothes and ties. A new production building opened in November 1970 at Novovilenskaya Street 28, which still houses the factory and head office.

The Venus name, 1991

When the Soviet Union broke up, the staff asked the Union of Writers of Belarus to help find a new name. Writer Vladimir Pavlov suggested Milavitsa, an old Slavic name for the planet Venus and for a goddess of love and beauty. The company became Milavitsa in 1991, opened its first branded shop in 1992, and became a joint-stock company with no state shareholding.

In 1994 it set up a jersey factory in Minsk, Gimil, with the Italian knitter Cagi Maglierie. In 1996 it became the first Belarusian company to receive ISO 9001 certification. Foreign investors arrived in 2000, Italy's Iluna Group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and in 2003 Milavitsa was named Belarus's best exporter of the year.

Ownership from Tallinn

In 2006 the Estonian holding Silvano Fashion Group bought about 60 percent of Milavitsa, together with the Latvian lace and lingerie maker Lauma Lingerie and the Russian retailer Linret. Silvano is listed in Tallinn and, since 2007, in Warsaw. It now sells Milavitsa, Lauma Lingerie, Alisee, Aveline, Laumelle and the men's brand Hidalgo.

What Milavitsa makes today

The Minsk factory makes about 9 million pieces a year with close to 900 staff, figures the group gives when it calls the plant Europe's largest lingerie sewing factory. That is well below the 16 million items quoted in older accounts, including this one.

The brand targets women aged about 25 to 55 in the middle market. Collections are split into classic, fashion and beachwear lines, covering bras, briefs, shapewear, nightwear, homewear and swimwear. Its size range runs from 70A to 120F, and fuller-figure full-cup bras in large band sizes are a specialty. Main markets remain Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries, through wholesale, franchise and its own shops. In March 2017 the 60th Milavitsa shop in Minsk opened, in the Galleria Minsk mall.

Last updated October 7, 2026