About Fox Intimates

Around thirty five pages covering fit, fabric, styles, briefs, care, wearing and comfort, plus two working tools. Each page is written to be read once and used afterwards. Where a number exists and is solid, it appears. Where a number does not exist, the page says so in plain language rather than inventing one.

The tone is deliberately dry. Underwear attracts a lot of adjectives, and adjectives are not much help in a fitting room. A band either sits level or it does not. Lace either survives a wash or it comes back with a run in it. Those are the terms this site works in.

• Nothing is sold. There is no shop, no catalogue and no basket.
• No language about hiding, fixing, correcting or flattering a body. Garments are judged; bodies are not.
• No invented experts, no fabricated reviews and no statistics without a real source behind them.
• No medical advice. Where a symptom needs a clinician, the page says so and stops.
• No tracking of any kind. The privacy page explains that in more detail, though the short version is that there is nothing to explain.

Three sources, in this order. First, the physical properties of the materials involved, which are well documented: fibre behaviour in water and heat, the glass transition of polyurethane elastomers, the way a knitted structure distributes load. Second, the published sizing systems used across the United Kingdom, continental Europe, France and the United States, which are arithmetic and can simply be set out. Third, the accumulated practical knowledge of fitting, which is less tidy but consistent enough to be worth writing down.

Where those three disagree, the page says which one it is following and why. Where a widely repeated rule turns out to be folklore, it gets named as folklore. The old habit of adding four or five inches to an underbust measurement is the clearest example: it comes from an era of non stretch fabric and it produces a band that cannot do its job in a modern garment.

This is a guide, not a scripture, and parts of it will be wrong. Corrections are welcome and are read by a person. The contact page has the address. There is no form, no phone number and no mailing list, which keeps the whole thing simple for everyone involved.

Where a page is updated after a correction, the change is made to the page itself rather than appended as a note, because a guide that carries its own errata around is harder to use than one that is simply right.

Anyone who wears intimates and has ever stood in front of a mirror wondering whether the problem is the garment. It assumes an adult reader, no prior knowledge and no particular interest in fashion as a subject. It assumes a certain amount of impatience, which is why the practical instructions are set out as steps rather than buried in prose.