Proclaim

Proclaim is a Los Angeles lingerie brand that makes nude bras, underwear and loungewear in shades meant for brown and deeper skin tones, using recycled and plant-based fabrics. It was founded by Shobha Philips, a merchandiser of South Asian descent, who conceived it in 2015 while working in San Francisco, launched it in 2017, and moved the business to Los Angeles in 2018, where the garments are made.

The problem with "nude"

Philips started Proclaim because she could not find a nude bra that matched her skin. In the lingerie trade "nude" had long meant one beige, sometimes two, which disappear under a white shirt only for pale wearers. For anyone darker the color does the opposite of its job and shows through as a light patch.

That frustration was common enough to be a cliche by the mid-2010s, and several brands answered it at about the same time. What set Proclaim apart was that Philips tied the color question to a second one, about what the fabric was made from and where it was sewn.

A corporate background

Philips grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and studied marketing, design and international business at the University of Minnesota. She worked in merchandising at Target Corporation and held corporate roles in supply chain and market research before spending about ten years in San Francisco. She researched the fashion industry for roughly two years while still employed, then spent about eighteen months building prototypes and a supply chain before launch.

That background shows in the company. Proclaim is small, but it was planned like a sourcing exercise: fibers first, then mills, then sewing, all close enough to visit.

Recycled bottles and plant fibers

The first collection was built around wire-free bralettes in a recycled polyester (rPET) knit. Philips explained the process to Brit + Co: clear plastic water bottles are sterilized, chopped into flakes, melted and drawn into yarn, which is knitted into fabric. That fabric was woven and dyed in the Los Angeles area, and the garments were cut and sewn locally.

The range later widened to other fibers. An interview with The Quality Edit lists TENCEL lyocell, cupro made from cotton waste, Peruvian Pima cotton, organic cotton and hemp blends, and a plant-based shapewear fabric that combines EVO, a fiber derived from castor beans, with a bio-based elastane. Philips singles out TENCEL for being soft and lasting longer than most knits.

Three named shades

Proclaim names its colors after people rather than foods or numbers. The core palette is Ella Nude, Maya Nude and Ada Nude, sold alongside black. Underwear and bras run from S to 3X. Three shades is a short list next to the bigger brands, but for a company of this size every new shade means another dye lot and more stock to hold, and Philips has said she wants to add more.

Products and prices

The catalog reads like a capsule wardrobe in skin tones. There are bralettes with square or scoop necks, mid-rise briefs, reversible bodysuits, slip dresses and socks. In The Quality Edit's interview, a TENCEL mid-rise brief was priced at $29, a square-neck bralette top at $59, a reversible bodysuit at $68 and a slip dress at $110. These are mid-market prices, a little above a mall brand and well below designer lingerie.

Where Proclaim sits

Proclaim belongs to a group of brands that treated shade range as a design problem rather than a marketing line. The large players arrived at the same idea from the top: Skims launched shapewear in nine skin tones in 2019, and mainstream labels slowly added deeper nudes. Proclaim came at it from the bottom, with three shades, a local factory and a founder who was her own first customer.

Philips has since spoken about sustainable sourcing on industry panels, including the Sourcing Journal Sustainability Summit in Los Angeles in 2024. The brand is small and makes its clothes in California, which in the intimates trade is rarer than a good deep-brown bra.

Last updated October 7, 2026