Zimmerli

A self-taught knitter named Pauline Zimmerli founded Zimmerli, the Swiss maker of fine knitted underwear and nightwear for men and women, in 1871 in Aarburg, in the canton of Aargau. The business began with a single hand-operated knitting machine, and it still sews most of its underwear by hand in Ticino. The company is best known for its men's cotton undershirts and briefs, sold in lines such as Sea Island, Royal Classic and Business Class.

Pauline Zimmerli and the American Machine

The founder's story is more interesting than most. Ida Pauline Bäurlin was born in Aarau in 1829 and raised by her widowed mother with seven siblings. In 1859 she married Johann Jakob Zimmerli, a widower, and took on his six children alongside her own son, Oscar.

In 1871 Johann Jakob's dye works went bankrupt. He had read about a new invention from America, the hand-operated knitting machine invented by Isaac William Lamb in 1866. Pauline went to Basel to learn to use one and, by the company's account, quickly mastered the knitting of fine stockings and men's socks. That is the founding moment, and it was hers: Zimmerli is one of the oldest underwear houses in Europe, and it was started by a 42-year-old mother of a large household, not by a mill owner.

Ribs and the first underwear

The decisive step came in 1874. Pauline made her own improvements to the machinery and took delivery of a two-needle knitting machine from the United States, which could produce ribbed fabric. Rib is the reason knitted underwear fits: it stretches across the body and springs back. With it, Zimmerli could make vests and drawers as well as hosiery, and the company describes this as the start of a new industry in Switzerland.

Paris, World's Fairs and a Factory in Aarburg

The business looked abroad early. Zimmerli had representatives in Paris by 1876, and in 1878 the Paris department store Le Bon Marche began selling its knitwear. Oscar traveled widely, including in the United States, to fill the order books.

In 1888 Oscar bought out his stepbrother Adolf and set up a joint-stock company with a capital of one million Swiss francs. A new factory opened in Aarburg in 1889, the same year the firm won a gold medal at the Paris world's fair. Further medals followed in 1900, including a Grand Prix, and in 1910 at Brussels, the year the Aarburg plant was enlarged. The company emerged from the hardship of the First World War still selling under the slogan "the world's finest underwear."

Coldrerio and the Borner Era

In 1965 Zimmerli bought a production site in Ticino, at Coldrerio near Mendrisio, close to the Italian border. That is where its skilled seamstresses still make the underwear. The company states that 100 percent of its men's and women's underwear, and about 80 percent of all its styles, are made by hand.

The modern company took shape in the 1990s. In 1992, during a restructuring, the cousins Walter and Hans Borner bought Zimmerli Coldrerio SA, and in 1997 they bought Zimmerli Textil AG as well. Their strategy was narrow on purpose: luxury underwear in the finest natural fibers, made carefully. In 1998 a women's collection, Donna, was launched and sold well internationally.

How a Zimmerli Undershirt Is Made

The production notes the company publishes are refreshingly specific. Fabric rests overnight in a humidity-controlled room before cutting. Cutting is done by hand with scissors or by digital cutter, depending on the piece. For the women's range, lace and embroidery are cut into shape by hand, piece by piece. Each finished garment is measured by a seamstress before pressing and packing, and cotton offcuts are collected for recycling.

The fibers are the other half of the reputation. The top line, Sea Island, uses Sea Island cotton from Barbados, one of the rarest long-staple cottons grown. Royal Classic and Business Class are the long-running men's staples; Pureness, Pure Comfort, Wool & Silk and silk nightwear fill out the range. Earlier versions of this page made specific claims about Egyptian, Pima and Xinjiang cotton, a mercerized yarn and decades-long wear; those could not be confirmed and are omitted. For readers interested in the fabric itself, see this encyclopedia's entry on cotton and its notes on jersey knit.

Boutiques and a Rebrand

The 2010s brought Zimmerli out of the department store drawer. It opened a boutique on rue Saint-Honore in Paris and a shop-in-shop at KaDeWe in Berlin in 2012, had a record year in 2013, and opened in Shanghai, Mendrisio and at Harrods in London in 2016, the year it set up a trading company in China. A capsule with the Swiss designer Julian Zigerli followed in 2015, and in 2020 its products gained Made in Green certification. The company celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2021.

The head office is now in Zurich. In 2026 Zimmerli began a rebrand built around the phrase "Private Luxury for people with conviction." The phrasing is new; the claim behind it, that the best undershirt is the one nobody else sees, has been the house position since Pauline's two-needle machine arrived from America.

Last updated October 1, 2026