Brands Getting It Right: Thistle and Spire

One might think the lingerie industry had already shown every version of the same fantasy, but Thistle and Spire challenged it at its own game. Launched in 2015, the brand pushed back against repetitive lingerie marketing by centring the individual as the occasion and showing bras, bodysuits and other pieces on a wider range of bodies. The point was not to sell one narrow look. It was to sell self-expression.

An American, female-founded business, Thistle and Spire stood out by working with micro-influencers rather than supermodels and by showing a wider range of body shapes, skin tones and personal style at a time when many competitors were still relying on the same polished formula. Their imagery made room for scars, tattoos, wider hips, slimmer waists, and bodies that looked like they belonged to actual people. That shift mattered because it pushed against the industry’s usual definition of beauty and gave consumers something far less stale: the sense that lingerie could reflect who they were, rather than who they were meant to imitate.

Thistle and Spire and the End of the Angel Era

The clearest example of the old script was Victoria’s Secret. Its rise was tied to a very specific image of femininity: tall, slender models, highly symmetrical faces, and the whole “angel” performance built around aspiration, desirability and fantasy. It sold confidence as something attached to a narrow body type, then packaged that standard as glamour.

That formula shaped the wider market. Other brands followed the same logic because it looked commercially safe. Luxury was tied to exclusivity, and exclusivity was tied to a body that most women were never going to have. The everyday shopper was barely part of the picture.

Against that backdrop, Thistle and Spire did something more interesting than simply adding variety. It widened the frame. It suggested that lingerie could still be bold, sexy and visually striking without relying on the same exhausted template of femininity.

Consumers were being sold a fantasy, and the rest of the industry largely followed the same script. The everyday woman was barely in the frame. Expanding that script meant accepting a much broader range of looks, sizes and skin tones, and for a long time most brands either did not want to do that or did not believe it would pay. Victoria’s Secret positioned itself as exclusive, and until the mid-2010s there was little sign that real diversity would be treated as commercially valuable. Since then, consumer expectations have shifted. Fashion and luxury are no longer reserved for a tiny visual elite, and more brands have had to reckon with that.

From the start, Thistle and Spire built its identity around individuality and self-expression. The imagery made that clear. This was lingerie shown on bodies that fashion marketing usually crops out, smooths over or leaves out altogether. Scars were visible. Tattoos were visible. Different shapes were visible. The visual message was not “here is the one correct kind of beauty”. It was “beauty is already here, and it does not need to arrive in one approved format”.

That shift matters because it changes the emotional experience of the shopper. When every brand shows the same narrow body, the customer is left comparing themselves to the standard before they have even looked at the product properly. When a brand broadens what is shown, that pressure eases. The product becomes easier to imagine on an actual body, not just on a fantasy body.

That is where Thistle and Spire got it right. It did not water down lingerie or strip it of edge. It kept the drama, the detail and the sense of occasion, but made space for more people inside that world. That is a much stronger move than simply claiming to be inclusive in the copy and then serving up the same old visuals.

The brand’s growth suggests that this was not only culturally relevant but commercially smart. Its expansion and its 2020 partnership with Nordstrom pointed to something the industry had been slow to admit: there is demand for lingerie that treats a wider range of women as fully part of the market rather than as an afterthought.

That does not mean the brand is beyond criticism. Its more recent controversy around AI muddies the picture, because synthetic imagery raises a completely different set of concerns about realism, comparison and trust. Even so, the broader point stands. What set Thistle and Spire apart was its willingness to challenge the visual rules of the category while keeping a strong aesthetic identity of its own.

Brands like Savage X Fenty later moved into similar territory in their own way, but Thistle and Spire helped show that lingerie did not have to choose between style and inclusivity. That should never have been presented as a trade-off in the first place.

Why This Matters

Lingerie has long been sold through a narrow idea of who gets to feel sexy, confident and luxurious. Thistle and Spire helped loosen that grip. It showed that diversity could be built into the product story, the casting and the overall brand world, rather than bolted on as a bit of late-stage reputation management. Other brands have moved in a similar direction since then, but Thistle and Spire helped prove an important point early on: diversity can be part of the brand itself rather than a thin layer added on top of the same old formula. That means product design, casting and overall visual identity all pulling in the same direction.

There is still plenty of room for the industry to do better. Consumers are raising the bar and paying more attention to which brands reflect real bodies and which ones are still clinging to a tired ideal dressed up in trend language. Thistle and Spire’s success showed that many shoppers were already hungry for something less narrow, less repetitive and less patronising.

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