Hunkemöller Brand Guidelines: An 1886 Amsterdam Corset Shop and Its Changing Owners

A couple, a corset shop and a corner of the Leidseplein.

Hunkemöller began in Amsterdam in 1886 as a specialist corset shop. Its founders were Wilhelm Hunkemöller (1858–1927) and Josephina Lexis; FashionUnited named the couple in March 2022. German Wikipedia says Wilhelm came from Warendorf, in Westphalia, and Dutch Wikipedia calls him a German immigrant and says his wife came from Roermond, in the south of the Netherlands. The first shop stood at the corner of the Leidseplein and the Leidsestraat, the German trade paper TextilWirtschaft reported in October 2026.

The business was both a maker and a shopkeeper at first. Dutch and German Wikipedia both say it produced corsets in Amsterdam, and German Wikipedia adds that it did so in its own factory and sold hoop skirts as well as corsets. The family then opened branches in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. It also traded under a double name, Hunkemöller Lexis, joining the two founders’ surnames.

That family chapter ended in 1974, when the business was bought by Confendex B.V., part of the Vendex retail group. German Wikipedia describes Confendex as a subsidiary of Vroom & Dreesman, the Dutch department store company. The purchase also shortened the name to plain Hunkemöller.

Expansion became the main aim after the takeover, Dutch Wikipedia says. The first Belgian branch followed in 1977, according to German Wikipedia, and the first German shop about ten years after that. Franchising began in 1979, and at the end of 2017, Dutch Wikipedia says, Hunkemöller announced that it wanted to take over all the shops run by its Dutch franchisees.

The chain later passed from Vendex to Maxeda. Today Hunkemöller calls itself one of Europe’s leading lingerie brands, with more than 700 stores across 20 countries; the claim of leadership is its own.

From corsets to a full lingerie wardrobe.

The range has moved with the garment trade. Dutch Wikipedia says traditional corsets have largely left the assortment. Hunkemöller now sells bras, briefs, nightwear and swimwear, and, since 2012, sportswear. Its website also lists loungewear, hosiery and a shapewear collection. Among the products Dutch Wikipedia credits to it over the years are a T-shirt bra with soft stretch cups and functional bras in larger sizes.

Its advertising has leaned on well-known Dutch names. The presenter and model Sylvie Meis was the face of the company before the model Doutzen Kroes, German Wikipedia says. Kroes then became a brand ambassador, and collections were released under the name Doutzen’s Stories. German Wikipedia dates the start of that partnership to August 2016 and Dutch Wikipedia to August 2017. Current campaigns run under the line “for every woman in you,” built on the company’s phrase “one woman is many women.” Its sustainability programme is called Together Tomorrow.

The most visible design work of recent years has been in the shops. In November 2024, RetailDetail reported that a completely renovated shop in Utrecht would serve as the blueprint for a new store concept, with a calm look and bright spaces, and that a new brand identity would also reach a rebuilt web shop and app. The first Belgian shop in the new format opened on the Veldstraat in Ghent, reported in June 2025: a store of 150 square metres, which the company described with the phrase “premium look, affordable price.” Chief executive Brian Grevy told RetailDetail that month about a new brand positioning, identity, collections and shop concept.

In 2026 Hunkemöller marked its 140th year with an exhibition at the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, tracing lingerie from the late nineteenth century to today, TextilWirtschaft reported on 1 October. The venue was chosen because it stands on the site of the first shop. The website also carries a Heritage collection.

German Wikipedia records two awards from 2016: “Best Online Shop” in the underwear and lingerie category of a Focus test, and a Plus X Award naming it Germany’s best retailer that year for customer satisfaction.

Packets, hangers and colour walls.

Hosiery and high-street lingerie are sold at close quarters. A pair of tights is usually bought in a flat packet or from a hanger, a bra from a rail and a vest from a folded stack, so much of the design work falls on the things around the garment: the pack, the hook, the shelf and the shop front. Type on a legwear packet has a practical job to do, since it has to carry a name, a style and a size in a small space.

Retail shapes the look as much as print does. Some names in this field are found mainly in their own shops, often in shopping malls and on high streets, where the shop front is the largest sign the brand has. Oniverse, the Italian group behind Calzedonia and Intimissimi, says it sells its collections exclusively through single-brand stores. Others reach customers through department stores, or as a concession inside another retailer: in 2005 the trade paper TextilWirtschaft reported Intimissimi shop-in-shops opening inside Victoria’s Secret in the United States.

Colour is often seasonal. A wall of tights or swimwear arranged by shade can work as display and stock at once, and a change of season can change the look of a shop without touching its fittings. Plain folded basics pull the other way, relying on cut, material and label rather than pattern, so that the same shop can hold both a bright display and a quiet one.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand: who founded it, who owns it and what it says about where its products are made, with the company’s own claims marked as such. The palettes and specimens here are our own.

A long run of owners.

The ownership record since 2010 is unusually busy. Maxeda sold the chain to the investment group PAI Partners at the end of 2010, and PAI sold it to Carlyle, the American investment firm: Dutch Wikipedia dates the sale to December 2015, and FashionUnited dates Carlyle’s purchase to 2016. Carlyle tried to float the company in 2017 without success, RetailDetail reported, and in 2020 the pandemic left the chain negotiating with its banks over its debts. In March 2022 FashionUnited reported a sale to the Dutch investors Parcom and Opportunity Partners, with Carlyle keeping a minority stake.

That arrangement lasted three years. RetailDetail reported in July 2024 that sales had fallen and that almost 50 shops would close. A financing deal in 2024 gave Redwood Capital Management, an investment firm with offices in New York and Miami, priority over other bondholders, a so-called up-tiering. In March 2025, FashionUnited reported, Redwood became sole owner through a debt restructuring and a capital injection; RetailDetail called it the company’s largest creditor.

Other bondholders went to court in the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. In January 2026, FashionUnited reported, a Dutch court rejected their objections, finding insufficient evidence to reverse the takeover, while the New York case was still running. Hunkemöller and the directors named in the case said all the transactions followed applicable law and the contracts.

Hunkemöller’s head office has been on the Media Park in Hilversum since 2025, Dutch Wikipedia says. Its sustainability pages describe a programme covering its value chain, with yearly reports. In a letter dated 7 July 2022, published by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, it said it had worked for many years with a garment factory in Myanmar, and that it was looking into allegations of labour abuses there, which the centre had raised with it. In April 2022 FashionUnited reported that the consumer body Verbraucherzentrale Rheinland-Pfalz had sued over the way some Hunkemöller items were advertised as sustainable; the company said it was “surprised” by the publication and that it had taken steps after an earlier warning letter.

For a design guide, Hunkemöller shows how a shop name can carry 140 years while nearly everything behind it changes hands. Compare Etam, a lingerie chain that remains family-owned, and Maidenform, another maker that began with a shop. For this guide we use a corset plum and a dusty rose with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Hunkemöller’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.