Yse Lingerie

Ysé is a Paris lingerie label founded in 2012 by Clara Blocman, who started it at the age of 23. It made its name with soft, lightly structured bras for small busts, the customer that push-up-heavy French lingerie had long treated as a problem to be fixed. Today Ysé sells lingerie, swimwear, ready-to-wear and knitwear from its own stores in Paris, other French cities, Brussels and London, and it has been a certified B Corp since 2024.

A founder's complaint turned into a brand

Blocman's account of the founding is simple. She could not find lingerie that matched what she wanted to wear, so she designed it. The brand describes its starting principle as pieces "designed to enhance bodies naturally, without transforming them," a direct jab at the padded, molded cups that filled most shop windows in 2012.

That position mattered more than it might sound. For decades the mainstream French bra, at least the one sold to younger women, leaned on foam and push-up construction. A smaller bust was something to be enlarged. Ysé took the opposite view and built its first collections around unlined and lightly lined cups, bralettes and triangles in lace and embroidery, cut for smaller cup sizes.

Etam takes a majority stake

In July 2019 the French lingerie group Etam announced that it had acquired a majority stake in Ysé. The price was not disclosed. The deal put a small, founder-led label inside the family-controlled group that also runs Undiz and Maison 123. Ysé still trades under its own name, with its own stores, and Blocman's founding story remains the center of its marketing.

Ysé lingerie for small busts, and then beyond

The small-bust focus gave Ysé a clear identity in a crowded market. It also had limits as the company grew. The brand has since widened its size range to a European 46 and an E cup. That is still modest next to specialists in full-bust fitting, but it is a real change from a label once defined by who it left out.

The construction stayed recognizably Ysé. The unlined bra remains the house shape: fine fabric over a light frame, often wire-free, meant to sit close to the body and show its natural shape rather than reshape it. The brand's manifesto puts the idea in one line: pieces that "adapt to women and not the other way around." Its current tagline, "A wardrobe as free as women should be," is pitched at the same idea.

French jacquard, Swiss embroidery, Moroccan workshops

Ysé names its materials with some precision. The company cites French jacquard, Swiss embroidery, lace, organic cotton and Italian wool. For lingerie and swimwear it uses French-made fabrics, and it says that from the Spring-Summer 2025 collection about 95% of the range qualifies as "more responsible," meaning that the main material in each piece is at least half recycled, organic or otherwise certified fiber.

It is also open about where things are sewn, which many Paris labels are not:

• Lingerie and swimwear: Morocco and Tunisia
• Ready-to-wear and bodysuits: Portugal and Bulgaria
• Knitwear: Romania, using Italian yarn

The brand's rule is a short supply chain, with production kept within about 3,500 km of Paris. Fabrics and trims come from the same region, with Turkey the most distant source. All of its workshops have had social audits, it works with the traceability company Fairly Made, and it says it ships no goods by air, only by sea or road.

A lingerie brand that sells sweaters

The move into clothing came gradually. Ysé now sells tops, trousers, dresses, denim, pajamas and knitwear next to its bras and briefs. Bodysuits are a bridge between the two halves of the business, sold as lingerie and as daywear. Swimwear and beachwear follow the same soft, unpadded logic as the bras.

That makes Ysé closer in shape to a small fashion house than to a corsetry firm. Its natural comparison is less Aubade or Simone Perele, with their engineered cups and long factory traditions, and more the newer Paris labels that sell a whole wardrobe around a lingerie core.

B Corp, repairs and a second-hand shop in Rennes

Ysé received B Corp certification in 2024. Around it sits a set of practical programs. Repairs are free and handled by Les Réparables, a team of women based in the Vendée. A Second Life scheme collects worn Ysé pieces, repairs them and resells them in the brand's Rennes boutique and at pop-up events. The company has supported Rêv'Elles, an association that helps young women from working-class neighborhoods build confidence and careers, since 2022.

The team is all women, which the brand mentions often. In late 2025 it published a new climate action plan aligned with the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degree target. This encyclopedia records about 1,530 Ysé products, most of them soft bras, briefs and bodysuits.

Last updated October 7, 2026