Zalando

Founded in Berlin in October 2008 by Robert Gentz and David Schneider, Zalando has grown from an online shoe shop into the largest fashion platform in Europe. It is not a lingerie brand. It is a marketplace and retailer whose women's lingerie section alone lists more than 18,000 items from over 400 labels, from Sloggi multipacks to Agent Provocateur sets, which makes it one of the most important shop windows for European intimates.

Shoes first, named after shoes

The name comes from "zapatos," Spanish for shoes, and footwear was the whole idea at the start. Gentz and Schneider modeled the business on Zappos, the American online shoe store, and raised their first money from the Samwer brothers, the Berlin investors behind Rocket Internet, who built a series of companies on proven American e-commerce models.

Clothing came in 2010, when Zalando also launched in the Netherlands and France. The UK, Italy and Switzerland followed in 2011, and in 2012 the company opened in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Spain and Poland in quick succession. Free delivery and free returns were central to the pitch, and they suited a category like underwear, where size and fit are hard to judge on a screen.

Zalando's place in the European lingerie market

For lingerie brands, Zalando is a distribution channel with unusual reach. As of 2026 it operates in 30 European markets and reports about 62 million active users. A mid-size brand that would struggle to open stores in Stockholm, Milan and Warsaw can reach all three through one listing.

The women's lingerie department on the German site is divided into bras, bottoms, bodysuits and lingerie sets, undershirts and shapewear. The brands on offer cover almost every price level in the market:

• Mass basics: Sloggi, Schiesser, Calvin Klein Underwear, Tommy Hilfiger
• High-street lingerie chains: Hunkemöller, Etam, Lindex, Oysho, Marks & Spencer, Lascana, Intimissimi
• Established lingerie makers: Triumph, Chantelle, Passionata, Calida, Wolford
• Premium and specialist: Agent Provocateur, Spanx

Zalando also sells its own private label, Anna Field, in the category. That is the usual tension of a platform retailer: it is both landlord and competitor to the brands it hosts.

This encyclopedia holds about 803 products listed through Zalando, a sample that reflects the platform's mix rather than a single house style.

Frankfurt listing and the DAX

Zalando listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2014. In September 2021, when Germany's main index expanded from 30 to 40 companies, Zalando joined the DAX. For a company that had started selling sandals online thirteen years earlier, it was a clear marker of how far European e-commerce had moved into the mainstream.

The business has grown into a group. Zalando Lounge runs members-only flash sales of discounted stock, an outlet for surplus lingerie and swimwear as much as for shoes. Tradebyte and Anatwine provide software and services that connect brands to marketplaces. Beauty was added in 2018, and the company runs physical outlet stores in Germany.

The AboutYou takeover

In December 2024 Zalando announced that it would buy its Hamburg rival AboutYou for about 1.13 billion euros. The deal was completed in November 2025. It brought together two of the largest fashion platforms in German-speaking Europe and further concentrated online fashion retail in Zalando's hands.

In 2025 Zalando reported revenue of about 12.3 billion euros and net income of 213 million euros, with roughly 16,500 employees. The company is run by co-chief executives Robert Gentz, one of the founders, and David Schröder. Its headquarters is in Berlin, in the Stream Tower.

Why it matters for intimates

For most of the 20th century, a woman in Europe bought a bra from a department store fitting room, a corsetry specialist or a mail-order catalog. Zalando belongs to the generation of retailers that replaced much of that with a search box and a returns label. Bra fitting became a self-service process supported by size guides and free returns.

The effect on lingerie brands has been mixed. Smaller labels gained access to customers across the continent without building their own stores. They also lost control of how their products sit next to cheaper alternatives, often on the same page as a private label. For a shopper comparing a balconette bra from three countries in one afternoon, that crowded page is exactly the appeal.

Last updated October 7, 2026