Pull-In

Pull-In, now written PULLIN, is a French underwear and clothing brand founded in Hossegor, on the surf coast of southwest France, in 1999. It made its name with men's boxer shorts cut from printed Lycra of the kind used in surf wear, and it still designs everything in Hossegor and assembles its underwear in Portugal with the same partner it started with. It has made women's underwear on and off, and in 2025 it brought back a women's line with what it calls an unprecedented capsule collection.

For a lingerie archive, Pull-In is an interesting case: a men's brand whose women's bras and briefs come and go, while its construction ideas stay the same.

A snowboard mask strap and a Hossegor garage

The brand's founder, Emmanuel Lohéac, is described on its own site as "passionate about extreme sports and fashion." The first prototype, made in 1999, was a pair of boxer shorts in printed Lycra with a camouflage pattern, inspired by the strap of an Arnette snowboard mask. The fabric was the same stretch fiber used in surf gear, and the seams were flatlock, sewn flat so they would not rub.

The company was officially set up in 2000, in a garage. Hossegor was a fitting place for it. The town calls itself, through Pull-In's own copy, a European surfing mecca, and the brand has never left. Its head office is still there, in about 1,500 square meters of offices in the Pédebert business zone.

Loud prints on French television

Pull-In's prints were the point. Where most men's underwear of the time came in white, gray and navy, these came in camouflage, graphics and bright patterns. The brand got its first television exposure in 2001, on French reality shows, and that kind of visibility suited a product designed to be noticed.

Between 2005 and 2012 it opened flagship stores in Hossegor, New York, Val d'Isère and Honolulu, a list that reads like a map of surf and ski towns plus one big city. In 2013 the Impala group invested in the company.

Pull-In for women, then not, then again

Pull-In's women's range has had an uneven life. The brand has sold women's bras, briefs and thongs alongside its men's lines, built on the same idea of stretch fabric, flat seams and bold print. In 2015, when it launched DENING, a line of stretch jeans, it chose to become an exclusively men's brand.

Ten years later it changed its mind. The company's timeline marks 2025 as the "major return" of the women's line, with a capsule collection. The current shop again lists bras, panties and thongs for women.

The construction is what links the women's pieces to the men's. Stretch synthetic jersey, flatlock seams and printed fabric give a soft, sporty kind of underwear closer to a boyshort or a bralette than to French lace corsetry. In that it has more in common with Calvin Klein Underwear than with the Lyon and Paris lace houses.

Where the pieces are made

Pull-In publishes its supply chain in unusual detail. Design happens in Hossegor. Underwear is assembled and checked in Portugal, by a partner the brand has used since 1999. Fabrics come from Italy, Spain or France, the prints are applied in Belgium and Portugal, and the elastic waistbands are woven in Portugal or Italy, on looms the brand says are a century old. The DENING jeans are made separately in Tunisia, at a factory that specializes in denim.

The company also says all its products are certified PETA-Approved Vegan, that it uses organic cotton, linen, hemp, lyocell and recycled fibers in some lines, and that dropping plastic packaging for underwear has saved about nine tons of plastic a year since 2020. Its stated policy is "fewer products, but better," which is a notable claim for a brand built on seasonal prints.

The surf brand in the lingerie archive

Pull-In is not a lingerie house, and it would not describe itself as one. It belongs in this museum because of its women's pieces, which show how surf-wear construction crossed into everyday underwear. The museum holds 20 of them. Their story continues in Hossegor, where the brand that started with a camouflage boxer is now selling women's sets again.

Last updated October 7, 2026