In the world of intimate apparel and everyday essentials, few stories are as instructive as the rise and fall of Everlane. Now, founder Michael Preysman is staging a quiet comeback - one that echoes the corset's own history of being both restrictive and liberating. After Everlane's sale to ultra-fast-fashion titan Shein for a mere $100 million - a fraction of its $550 million valuation just four years ago - Preysman has launched a new venture at stillradical.com, declaring: "Same principles, but a new take. And this time: no venture capital, no private equity."
When Preysman and Jesse Farmer founded Everlane in 2011, they championed "radical transparency," a concept that resonated as deeply in fashion as the early 20th-century shift from whalebone corsets to elasticized brassieres. That ethos - showing the cost breakdown of a simple cotton tee or a silk slip - was a direct rebuke to the opaque pricing of luxury houses and the hidden labor behind fast fashion. But by 2020, Everlane had accepted an $85 million infusion from L Catterton, the private equity arm of LVMH. For those who study lingerie history, it was a familiar tightening: the same financial forces that once consolidated corset makers into giant textile trusts. By 2024, L Catterton owned a majority, and Shein - a company synonymous with breakneck production and minimal oversight - sealed the deal.
Preysman's new brand, still shrouded in mystery, has already attracted nearly 48,000 email sign-ups. Industry insiders are buzzing, with LinkedIn comments praising his audacity. For The Lingerie Museum, this feels like watching a master pattern-cutter start fresh with a better pair of shears. The question is whether he can avoid the same structural snags that turned his first label into a cautionary tale. After all, the most revolutionary lingerie isn't just beautiful - it's built to last, and to free the wearer from the very systems that would constrain her.
Originally reported by WWD