Wacoal 2027: New CEO, Glamorise and a Store Push

Wacoal 2027 starts with a paradox: the Kyoto-founded lingerie maker is selling more and keeping less. For the three months to June 30, 2026, Wacoal Holdings reported revenue of 48.9 billion yen, up 8.8% on the year, while profit attributable to owners fell 88.7% to 1.55 billion yen. The group forecasts revenue of 187.6 billion yen for the year ending March 2027, a 9.4% rise, and it also warns of a steep drop in profit against the year before.

That gap between sales and margin frames almost everything the company did in 2026. In the United States, where Wacoal America sells through department stores and its own small shops, the year brought a new chief executive, an acquisition aimed at fuller busts, and a plan to put the name in front of more shoppers.

A sales veteran takes over Wacoal America

On April 9, 2026, Wacoal America said Mitchell Kauffman was retiring after six years as CEO and that James Wheatley, president of the U.S. business for the previous year, would become president and CEO with immediate effect. Kauffman stayed on as an adviser during the handover.

Wheatley is a merchant rather than a designer. The announcement lists 13 years at JCPenney and 26 years in intimate apparel, including senior jobs at Vanity Fair and Maidenform, before he joined Wacoal as vice president of sales. In an interview with Retail Dive published on May 14, 2026, he named the problem bluntly: "We've been here 40 years in the U.S. We don't have enough brand recognition."

His answer is unusual for 2026. Retail Dive reports that Wacoal America is putting money into physical stores over e-commerce, because buying customers online has become too expensive. The company had eight stores at the time, mostly in outlet malls, after recent openings in Columbus, Ohio and Hilton Head, South Carolina, with more planned. Wheatley described the stores as a way to build awareness, not mainly as profit centers. Wholesale still carries the brand: Macy's, Belk, Bloomingdale's and Dillard's are named stockists, along with independent lingerie shops.

Glamorise joins, Lively is gone

The second move of the year was size. Wacoal International announced in April 2026 that it would buy Glamorise Foundations, a New York company founded in 1921 and known for larger band and cup sizes and its MagicLift and WonderWire bras. Kauffman, still CEO when the deal was announced, said it "greatly enhances Wacoal's position in digital commerce." Terms were not disclosed.

The purchase reads differently against the group's last American acquisition. Wacoal bought the direct-to-consumer label Lively for $85 million in 2019, and Retail Dive notes that it shut Lively down in early 2025. Glamorise brings an older customer, an established wholesale business and a century of engineering for heavy busts, which sits closer to what Wacoal itself has always sold than a social-media bralette brand did.

What Wacoal is putting on the shelf

The fit message is carried by specific products. In July 2025 Wacoal America launched the EverFlexing underwire bra, built on a flexible wire that the company says covers six traditional bra sizes, with four-way stretch fabric, two-ply seamless cups and a five-row hook-and-eye closure. Miryha Fantegrossi, senior vice president of merchandising and design, said it "adapts with you, instead of forcing you to fit into a static size." It was the brand's main innovation story going into this season, and it targets the same problem as the new stores: women who do not know their size.

The new-arrivals page of wacoal-america.com in October 2026 shows where the autumn range is heading:

• High Bar, a new line with an underwire bra, a plunge bra, a bralette and a bodysuit, in black, white, a lilac shade the brand calls Lilas, and a brown called Roebuck.
• Baseline, a new T-shirt bra in A to DDD cups, in Roebuck and black.
• Long-running styles recolored for the season: Retro Chic in Cabernet, Back Appeal and Embrace Lace in a red called Grandalia Red, and the Visual Effects minimizer and Basic Beauty spacer bra in a purple named Italian Grape.

The palette is deep and warm: wine, plum, brown and one cool lilac. Black remains the anchor. None of it is a runway statement, which is the point. Wacoal sells fit and repeat purchase, and the colors give an existing customer a reason to replace a bra she already owns.

Fit for the Cure at 25

The brand's oldest marketing tool is also its most effective one. Wacoal's Fit for the Cure program with Susan G. Komen marked 25 years in 2026, and a September 2026 media tour described more than 400 fitting events across the United States for the autumn. For each fitting or purchase at an event, Wacoal gives $5 to Komen's patient services. The company says the program has raised more than $6.3 million and fitted more than one million women since it began.

That program does in a department store what Wheatley wants the outlet shops to do: put a fitter, a tape measure and the Wacoal name in the same room as a customer.

The Japanese parent and the 2027 season

Wacoal began in Kyoto in the late 1940s under Koichi Tsukamoto, and it remains a Tokyo-listed company with a strong balance sheet: an equity ratio of 72.9% at the end of June 2026 and a dividend forecast of 100 yen a share for the current year. The full history is on our Wacoal brand page.

For the 2027 season, then, the reported plan is concrete and unglamorous. More outlet stores, more fittings, a size-inclusive sister label in Glamorise, and new underwire lines in dark, wearable colors. The open question is margin. Revenue is forecast to grow by almost a tenth this year, but the first-quarter profit line fell by close to nine-tenths, and the company itself expects a weaker full year.

Last updated October 28, 2026