Soma Intimates

In 2004 Chico's FAS, the women's clothing group based in Fort Myers, Florida, launched Soma Intimates, an American bra, panty and sleepwear brand. It sells mainly through its own boutiques in shopping centers and online, and it has built its name on a handful of comfort franchises rather than on fashion seasons: Enbliss wireless bras, Vanishing Edge panties and Cool Nights pajamas.

A Florida clothing group tries intimates

Chico's itself began in 1983 as a small shop on Sanibel Island, Florida, opened by Marvin and Helene Gralnick. It was first called Folk Art Specialties and was renamed after a friend's pet parrot. The company grew into a mall chain dressing women in their forties and older, and in 2004 it bought White House Black Market and launched Soma in the same year.

The logic of Soma was simple. Chico's already had a large, loyal and mostly midlife customer base, and that customer was poorly served by the dominant American lingerie chain of the time, Victoria's Secret, which marketed glamour to a much younger shopper. Soma pitched itself on fit, softness and practical engineering instead of runway spectacle. Its boutiques offer in-person bra fittings, along with in-store and curbside pickup for online orders.

Franchises instead of seasons

Soma's assortment is organized around named product families that return year after year, which suits a customer who wants to buy the same bra again in a new color.

Enbliss

Enbliss is the brand's family of wire-free bras and bralettes, marketed as "cloud-soft" and designed to give lift without an underwire. It sits squarely in the wireless bra category that grew quickly in American intimates during the 2010s.

Vanishing Edge and Vanishing 360

Vanishing Edge is a line of panties with a raw, bonded edge that Soma describes as patented and engineered not to ride up or roll. Vanishing 360 extends the idea into smoothing and shapewear pieces. Both belong to the no-show family of seamless briefs that replaced visible elastic trims for many wearers.

Cool Nights

Cool Nights is the sleepwear franchise: lightweight pajamas cut from fabric meant to stay cool and not cling, with hidden pockets. Soma says it has sold more than 16 million pieces, which makes it one of the larger single sleepwear lines in American specialty retail.

Beyond those families the bra range covers push-up, strapless, sports, balconette, unlined and T-shirt bras. Band sizes run from 32 to 44 with cups from A up to I in selected styles, and panties from XS to XXL.

The chain and its owners

Soma grew alongside its sister brands in shopping centers across the United States. In 2018 Chico's FAS reported about 258 Soma boutiques and 19 outlet stores, against 551 Chico's boutiques and 390 White House Black Market stores. The group tried a separate online underwear label, TellTale, in 2019 and phased it out in 2023, while Soma remained the group's intimates business.

On January 5, 2024, the investment firm Sycamore Partners completed its purchase of Chico's FAS for about one billion dollars, taking the company private. Soma is now run within that private group, its Chico's Distribution Services entity named on the brand's website, still trading alongside Chico's and White House Black Market, and still selling the same three franchises that carried it through two decades of mall retail.

Six pieces in the archive

The archive holds six Soma items, photographed as retail listings rather than as fashion images, and that suits the brand. Soma has never sold itself through runway shows or celebrity campaigns of the kind that made its larger rival famous. The brand's selling point has always been how a piece feels after eight hours at a desk, which a catalog photograph can only hint at.

Last updated October 7, 2026