Y.O.U Underwear

Y.O.U Underwear is a British organic cotton underwear brand based in Oxford, incorporated as a private limited company on November 15, 2016. It sells underwear, bras and loungewear made from GOTS-certified organic cotton in a Fairtrade-certified factory in India, and for every pair sold it donates a pair through the charity Smalls for All. Earlier versions of this page placed the founding in London in 2017 and named two founders, Rob and Lucy Gillbe. The company's own records do not support either point, and both have been corrected here.

Uganda, 2016

The brand's own account starts with a trip. In 2016 its founder traveled to East Africa as a volunteer with the Uganda Marathon, a running event tied to community projects, and came back with one statistic that shaped the business: that around one in ten girls worldwide miss up to three months of school a year because they have no underwear to manage their periods.

The website tells this story without naming the founder. The UK company register is more specific. Companies House lists Sarah Bronwen Jordan as a director from the day of incorporation, alongside Lily Chong, who stood down in 2018. Steven Gabriel joined the board in June 2021. The registered office is in Oxford.

Buy One, Give One

The model is simple and has stayed the same. Each pair bought triggers a pair donated through Smalls for All, a UK charity that collects and distributes underwear to women and girls in Africa and supports menstrual health and women's employment projects. The company also works with the Ajuma Foundation in Kenya.

By its own count Y.O.U has donated more than 60,000 pairs and reached over 20,000 women and girls. Older versions of this page said the brand worked with more than 100 partner organizations serving homeless people, refugees and survivors of domestic violence in many countries. That could not be confirmed; the documented giving is focused on African girls and women through a small number of partners. The company also runs a Pink Collection whose sales support Maggie's, the cancer care charity.

Certified at Both Ends

The supply chain is where Y.O.U has done its most careful work, and the paperwork is unusually complete for a small label:

• Fiber: 100 percent organic cotton, certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard.
• Factory: Fairtrade certified, in India, described by the brand as one of the country's leading ethical manufacturers.
• Company: B Corp certified in 2021 with a score of 160.5, and recertified in June 2025 with 168.8. A score of 80 is enough to qualify.
• Other: PETA-approved vegan, and a Living Wage employer in the UK.

Earlier versions of this page claimed that Y.O.U was one of the few fashion brands anywhere to hold both organic and Fairtrade certification. That overstates it. GOTS cotton sewn in a Fairtrade factory is uncommon in budget underwear, but it is not unique; other ethical labels, among them Pact and Subset, make similar claims.

From Online to the Covered Market

Y.O.U started as an online business and opened its first shop in 2021, in Oxford's Covered Market, the eighteenth-century market hall off the High Street. The range has grown well beyond the first briefs. Women's styles now include bikini briefs, boyshorts, thongs, high-waisted briefs and undershorts, with non-wired bras and bralettes. There are men's boxers and trunks, a girls' line of underwear and first bralettes, socks, and a loungewear range of robes, pajamas and camisoles. Matching sets are sold as bundles.

The economics of buy-one-give-one are simple to state and hard to run: the donated pair is effectively built into the price of the first, so a brand like this cannot compete with fast fashion on cost and does not try.

What It Adds Up To

Y.O.U is a small business, and it has stayed close to the idea it started with. Its distinguishing feature is not the cotton, which several brands now use, but the fact that every sale is tied to a specific, countable donation to girls who would otherwise miss school. The company reports that number, and it reports its B Corp score, and both have gone up.

Last updated October 7, 2026