How One Designer Engineers a Perfect-Fitting Pair of Boxer Briefs

It didn't take long for designer Matthew Congdon to get elbows-deep in product innovation at innerwear start-up Mack Weldon. Just a few short months after the former Global Design Director of Men's Underwear at underpants powerhouse Calvin Klein landed in his new role as Creative Director and Vice President of Design, he's hard at work figuring out how to make men's underthings even better starting by tweaking and evolving the brand's bestselling 18-hour jersey boxer briefs.

"You don't need to reinvent the wheel all the time," Congdon tells GQ. "You just need to make the wheel better and smoother and turn quicker and do everything it's supposed to do."

Congdon comes with a formidable resume: He got his career start at Club Monaco in the late-90s after graduating from Parsons School of Design, later cut his teeth working at labels including J. Crew and Uniqlo, where he collaborated closely with Jil Sander, bringing her groundbreaking +J collection to market, while launching Heattech, a product category that forever changed how consumers in America think about affordable winter performance-wear. Throughout his career—spanning stints in knits, sportswear, sweaters, and, of course, underwear—the common thread has always been in the details, and how something as subtle as a seam or an armhole can make or break an entire collection.

"When I started at Parsons, I was obsessed with pockets and all the little details—I was really myopic, really focused on that," Congdon says. "The Jil Sander experience was very interesting—we would spend an hour just on an armhole—I remember thinking that's really amazing, because it's all about how it moves. With menswear, there's kind of a formula that's existed for a long time. The basics and these foundation garments sometimes are the pieces that need the most attention and the most upgrading. All these details—that's what makes it great."

Paying attention to even the smallest adjustment matters—particularly when it comes to guys' down there areas. "I think underwear is such an interesting category because it's very personal. I can't tell you how much, since I started to focus on underwear years ago, guys are really willing to go there and talk to you. I've gone through customs at the airport, when they ask you what you do—so I tell them, and a lot of times I hear about the riding up of the leg, the rolling over of the waistband, and breathability—that's a big deal to them." For pretty much all men, underwear is the closest garment to your body, so small changes can make a big difference.

It's this obsession with nuance that drives Congdon to constantly iterate and innovate on something as seemingly straightforward as a pair of everyday boxer briefs—that, and much of the industry's abject indifference to meetings its customers' needs. "Underwear for a lot of companies is waistband-down," he explains. "It's about: let's put a name on the waistband, and all the rest is moot."

Sure, cultivating a strong brand identity is crucial to longevity and success, especially in a crowded market, but solving for sweaty balls, pinched waistbands, and legs that bag or ride up throughout the course of the day is of far greater concern to Congdon. And that's exactly what he's doing at Mack Weldon.

"I know 'innovation' is the buzzword du jour," he says. "But I think that as a designer, from a personal standpoint, innovation should be intrinsic. It should be something you don't have to think about that seamlessly blends into what your life currently is—and makes it better without you even recognizing it. Innovation within the underwear category goes back to: What are guys talking about that bothers them? Pants should stretch with you—they should have movement and flexibility. What the armhole did for Jil Sander, we want the leg opening to do here. You should be dry at all times—you shouldn't have to think about your underwear doing this."

The underwear field is becoming an increasingly crowded one and Congdon's former employer, Calvin Klein, looms large in the background. "I have the utmost respect for Calvin Klein and that brand—and I think their branding and their marketing is key to who they are," he says. Yet working on a smaller scale, and having the ability to create a bigger impact, was a draw. "These are very mature brands in the business and they have a hard time changing. "All these new brands are able to attract these customers—and they're loyal customers—because they're able to offer something new, offer something premium, and deliver on those promises."

Here's a breakdown of what Congdon did to bring Mack Weldon's boxer briefs even closer to the sartorial ideal of undies:

"The Mack Weldon waistband is iconic, as far as the stripe and that the only real call out is 'For Daily Wear' on the inside—it really is for everything that happens in your day," Congdon says. "The new waistband looks the same, but is looser and more responsive. We added modulus—it's super-soft, it's a whole new fiber, and it's recyclable. You know those guys who say they're a medium when they're really a large? This new waistband grows with you, and fits at the same time. It stretches, it never really hits maximum, and it recovers well. We're one of the very first brands out there to use this fiber—and we've also incorporated this technology into the leg."

"We don't do a center back closure on the waistband, we do a side closure—and we do a special 'kissing' finish so it's super-smooth and almost seamless and there won't be any abrasion," Congdon says.

"We work very closely with our manufacturers in Asia for this, and this is a very specific yarn size that they've developed for us," Congdon says of Mack Weldon's super-soft 18-hour jersey. "We actually deal with longer lead times, longer development, so we can do things like heather the way we want to. We're not under the pressure of a department store shipping schedule that forces you into the situation of planning things a year in advance for deliveries. When our products are ready to launch, we launch them."

"I just came back from Asia on a visit to a lot of the factories we work with, and what I thought was fascinating is that the production line for Mack Weldon is right next door to a production line of another company that I've worked for," Congdon says. "For premium underwear, they actually break down how long it takes to make each pair—because factories have quotas to meet. Our underwear takes double the time to make because of all the details that go into it. Our production time is slower because we build so much more into each pair—and you really do see the quality incarnate when you look at the sewing lines in production and how much care they put in to make sure we have the right zig-zag stitch, that the cover stitch is laid in, and that we do all these vents."

"We do a panel of our Airknit fabric—which is a lightweight piqué—on the back of each pair," Congdon says. "We've also taken the gusset and we've added the pique there—so it's dry where you need it to be dry."

"A thick or stiff hem at the leg is the male equivalent of visible panty line—especially as jeans get smaller," Congdon says. "So our new hem is much thinner—and it has the same stretchability as that modulus elastic we put into the waistband, which will grip and maintain its hold, but won't ride up. So it stays put and everything stays where it should be."

"What's amazing to me is that right back here, a lot of the lower-cost brands went to printing to make their underwear tagless," Congdon says. "But a lot of the premium brands still have a tag in the waistband—and the last thing you want at the back stabbing you is a tag."