With Yitty, Lizzo is Ready to Revolutionize Shapewear
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Shapewear is big business. Once a secret weapon of stylists and hidden beneath layers of fabric, foundation garments have moved into the spotlight. The success of game-changing brands like Kim Kardashian’s Skims has seen the category transform into a multi-billion dollar business, one uniquely poised to address the need for size inclusivity in fashion. One of Skims selling points is the XXS to 5X range, but yesterday’s announcement of Lizzo’s newly launched shapewear range goes a step further, offering sizes up to 6X.
Lizzo’s connection to the category is personal. The embarrassment and physical injuries she experienced while wearing girdles, Spanx, and corsets starting in middle school left an impression. “It was a painful experience that led me towards hatred of my body,” she shared on a live stream with her fans yesterday evening. “[They were] a tool used to make me feel shitty about myself; I couldn’t breathe, I would be sweating profusely, and [eventually] I just said fuck it.”
After quitting bras, shapewear, and other types of foundation garments for nearly a decade, Lizzo only reintroduced those pieces into her wardrobe once she stepped into the public eye. As she worked with stylists and fine-tuned her red carpet looks, the pieces became an essential part of her wardrobe. Still, she felt the need for improvement, and saw the potential of shapewear that could be incorporated into outfits instead of hidden. She began to reach out to potential collaborators. Still, pre-Skims and Savage x Fenty, few were willing to take a risk. “I was taking meetings, and people were not believing,” says Lizzo. “This was before a lot of the cool shapewear brands had launched, so they didn’t see the importance of the category. That was even more reason we should do it; people are still buying girdles, and they don’t need to be going through the torture that they’re putting themselves through.”
