Premium Intimates

Premium intimates catalogs from heritage European houses — PrimaDonna, Marie Jo, Hanro, Aubade, Empreinte, Louisa Bracq, Panache, Fantasie, Anita and Montelle. Order brochures by mail or shop digital.

Premium intimates is the one apparel category where European heritage houses still dominate the global craftsmanship conversation. Belgian luxury lingerie families like Van de Velde (PrimaDonna and Marie Jo), French maisons such as Aubade, Empreinte, Louisa Bracq and Lise Charmel, Swiss heritage houses including Hanro and Calida, and German specialty brands like Anita each carry between 75 and 140 years of pattern-making tradition. The seasonal lookbooks they publish for trade and consumer reference are the closest thing in the women's apparel market to a couture craftsmanship document — every embroidery technique, lace placement, underwire architecture and cup construction is photographed at editorial scale.

Premium Intimates Categories at a Glance

Belgian luxury (Van de Velde umbrella) — PrimaDonna (founded 1865 in Ronse, Belgium) is the larger-cup specialist whose Madison and Deauville continuous-cup constructions set the global standard for D-J cup full-bust support. Marie Jo (founded 1981 in Schellebelle, Belgium) is the design-led sibling brand within the Van de Velde portfolio, with the LUXE sub-line at the very top of the lookbook hierarchy and Marie Jo L'Aventure as the everyday-luxury tier. Both publish twice-yearly Fashion Collection lookbooks (SS and FW) plus dedicated Swim seasonal books — the brochures circulated to specialty retailers as the season's reference document.

French heritage maisons — Aubade (founded 1875 in Paris) is the storied French sensualist house behind the Boîte à Désir limited editions and the famous Leçons de Séduction campaign tradition; their SS and FW Kollektion books are bilingual French-German trade references. Empreinte (founded 1946 in Brittany) is the French specialist in lingerie for D-G+ cups, with construction methods adapted from the lingerie atelier discipline (seamless underwire envelopes, three-section cup architecture). Louisa Bracq (founded 1980 in Calais) is the French couture-adjacent lace house — every collection is built around the renowned Calais-Caudry French laces. Lise Charmel, Chantelle, Simone Pérèle, Aubade and Maison Lejaby together represent the modern French intimate-couture market.

Swiss + Austrian premium — Hanro (founded 1884 in Liestal, Switzerland) is the global Swiss reference for fine-knit cotton, silk and modal sleepwear, lounge sets and seamless intimates — the brand whose pure-essence and cotton-superior knit jersey lines anchor every Five Star hotel's amenity program. Wolford (Bregenz, Austria) is the technical luxury knitwear house — bodysuits, hosiery and seamless tops engineered at the Bregenz factory using their proprietary 3D-knit construction.

UK full-bust specialty (Eveden Group) — Panache, Fantasie, Freya, Elomi and the Curvy Kate set anchor the UK technical full-bust market with engineering specifically for D-K cups and band sizes 28-46. Panache's Sports Bra is the global gold standard for high-impact support engineered for full-bust runners; Fantasie's Smoothing T-Shirt and Lois Side Support are the most-prescribed t-shirt bras in UK department stores; Elomi is the plus-size sister brand engineered to size 46K. Freya runs the brand's swim and youth-luxury fashion lines.

German specialty (Anita) — Anita (founded 1886 in Brannenburg, Germany) is the only premium brand operating in three distinct adjacent specialty markets — Anita Maternity (pregnancy + nursing bras with patented seamless construction), Anita Active (technical sports bras with the Momentum architecture) and Anita Care (post-surgical and mastectomy lingerie). Each is published as a separate seasonal Fashion book.

American premium and modern DTC — Cosabella, Hanky Panky, Natori, Fleur du Mal and Kiki de Montparnasse are the American premium intimates houses sold through department stores and specialty boutiques. Modern DTC premium brands like Cuup, Lunya, Negative Underwear, Eberjey, Olivia von Halle and Skin have emerged in the last decade with a tighter editorial style and direct shipping models.

What to Look For in a Premium Intimates Catalog

A meaningful intimates lookbook does three things. First, it photographs full collection compositions — bra + brief + suspender shown coordinated, so the customer can see which matching pieces make a set. Second, it documents fit architecture: how a given cup is constructed (continuous vs three-part), how the band runs (flat-edge vs picot), whether the underwire is plunge, balconette or full-cup, and what band sizes the style is engineered for. Premium specialty brands like Empreinte, Panache and PrimaDonna will often annotate the size range explicitly on the editorial page.

Third, the brochure should show material detail at print scale — Calais lace from Aubade and Louisa Bracq, Swiss embroidery from Hanro, the Schiffli embroidery Marie Jo uses on its triangle bralettes, the technical jersey Anita uses on its sports lines. Print catalogs photograph fabrics far more honestly than screens do, which is why luxury intimates retailers still circulate the seasonal books to their fitter staff before every season.

How Premium Intimates Sizing Works

European brands typically run from 30-44 band sizes and A-K cup sizes, with cup sister-sizing rules that differ from American conventions. Continental sizing (used by PrimaDonna, Marie Jo, Aubade, Lise Charmel) uses the band measurement plus 0 (e.g. a UK 32D = EU 70D = FR 85D). UK sizing (used by Panache, Fantasie, Elomi, Freya) closely matches US sizing in most ranges but the cup grading is stricter and a UK F cup runs slightly smaller than a US F. When in doubt, the most reliable approach is to be professionally fitted in one of the specialty boutiques the premium European brands sell through — most lookbooks include the store locator URL on the back cover.

Building a Premium Intimates Wardrobe

Designers and intimates fitters typically recommend a layered wardrobe of three to four everyday t-shirt and full-cup bras (smooth-cup styles in skin and black are the foundation), two to three statement lace pieces from the seasonal Fashion collections, a high-impact sports bra if your training requires it, plus one or two evening or special-occasion sets with matching brief and (optionally) suspender belt. Premium European brands carry the smooth foundational styles for years, so investing once and matching the seasonal Fashion lookbook accent pieces against the same brand's foundational palette keeps the wardrobe coordinated. Sleepwear, loungewear and beach intimates are typically lighter-weight knits (Hanro Cotton Superior, Eberjey Gisele) or technical woven swim from Freya, PrimaDonna Swim, Aubade Beachwear and Anita Beachwear.

Heritage and Craft

Several of the brands on this page are over 100 years old — Aubade (1875), PrimaDonna (1865), Hanro (1884), Anita (1886) — and they continue to manufacture in their original European factories using techniques refined over generations. PrimaDonna and Marie Jo are still assembled at the Van de Velde facility in Schellebelle, Belgium. Anita's sport, maternity and care lines are made in their Brannenburg, Germany factory. Hanro fine-knit garments are knit and cut at the Hanro of Switzerland atelier in Liestal. Empreinte hand-assembles its larger-cup constructions in its Brittany workshop. The seasonal lookbooks document each brand's place within that European craft tradition.

Free Premium Intimates Catalogs by Mail

Most heritage European intimates brands distribute their seasonal Fashion collection books and Basic continuity books through specialty boutiques and the brands' own consumer newsletters. Print catalogs are particularly valuable in this category — the fabric depth, lace pattern detail and color saturation on a printed page is significantly closer to the real garment than any screen rendering, and full collection compositions are easier to evaluate at scale on paper. Browse the brand books above to compare collections, then request the seasonal Fashion or Basic brochure from your preferred brands.