aussieBum is an Australian men's swimwear manufacturer. In recent years aussieBum has also increased its product line to other
clothingA feature of nearly all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing or clothes, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body....
include underwear, leisurewear,
sportswearSportswear is clothing, including footwear, worn for sport or exercise.Typical sport-specific garments include short pants, tracksuits, T-shirts, polo shirts and trainers. Specialised garments include wet suits and salopettes. It also includes some underwear, such as the jockstrap...
and loungewear that has gained a huge following with fashion savvy males, rivalling brands such as
Calvin KleinCalvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Calvin Klein also gave his name to a range of perfumes, including CK One and CK Be , now owned by Coty Inc...
and
Dolce & GabbanaDolce & Gabbana , commonly abbreviated as D & G, is an Italian luxury fashion house.The company was started by the Italian designers Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana and is based in Milan, Italy...
.
The company is known for its highly creative products, such as Essence underwear; which contains vitamins locked in the fibre which releases through the skin, and the
Wonderjock; underwear designed to enhance the appearance of the male genitalia, causing quite a stir from news broadcasters around the world.
All aussieBum products are manufactured in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
with the business run completely out of the company's headquarters in the
SydneySydney is the largest city in Australia, and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney has a metropolitan area population of approximately 4.34 million and an area of approximately 12,000 square kilometres. Its inhabitants are called Sydneysiders, and Sydney is often called "the Harbour City"...
suburb of
LeichhardtLeichhardt is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Leichhardt is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt...
.
In 2001, director Sean Ashby started aussieBum when he couldn’t find the style of swimwear he grew up with.
aussieBum is an Australian men's swimwear manufacturer. In recent years aussieBum has also increased its product line to other
clothingA feature of nearly all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing or clothes, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body....
include underwear, leisurewear,
sportswearSportswear is clothing, including footwear, worn for sport or exercise.Typical sport-specific garments include short pants, tracksuits, T-shirts, polo shirts and trainers. Specialised garments include wet suits and salopettes. It also includes some underwear, such as the jockstrap...
and loungewear that has gained a huge following with fashion savvy males, rivalling brands such as
Calvin KleinCalvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Calvin Klein also gave his name to a range of perfumes, including CK One and CK Be , now owned by Coty Inc...
and
Dolce & GabbanaDolce & Gabbana , commonly abbreviated as D & G, is an Italian luxury fashion house.The company was started by the Italian designers Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana and is based in Milan, Italy...
.
The company is known for its highly creative products, such as Essence underwear; which contains vitamins locked in the fibre which releases through the skin, and the
Wonderjock; underwear designed to enhance the appearance of the male genitalia, causing quite a stir from news broadcasters around the world.
All aussieBum products are manufactured in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
with the business run completely out of the company's headquarters in the
SydneySydney is the largest city in Australia, and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney has a metropolitan area population of approximately 4.34 million and an area of approximately 12,000 square kilometres. Its inhabitants are called Sydneysiders, and Sydney is often called "the Harbour City"...
suburb of
LeichhardtLeichhardt is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Leichhardt is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt...
.
History
In 2001, director Sean Ashby started aussieBum when he couldn’t find the style of swimwear he grew up with. The company had an inauspicious launch in the middle of the
dot-com bustThe "dot-com bubble" was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1998–2001 during which stock markets in Western nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more recent Internet sector and related fields...
, and at the time the original website ran from a suburban lounge room, created by Ashby. Joined by co-director Guyon Holland, they created a new market by bringing back the classic speedo-style
Aussie cossie and introducing digital prints and other vibrant designs.
Since starting out with only
AU$The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
20,000, aussieBum is now a multi-million dollar global enterprise, employing over 30 people, manufacturing over 150 different styles of products.
Marketing
The company has no sales representatives overseas but relies on the strength of the company website. Australian sales make up only 10% of its business, and is on its way to
AU$The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
20 million in annual sales. The company has a broad reach for a business run entirely via the Web, with no shop front and minimal packing staff. The online store warehouse, which has very advanced in-house technology, to pick, pack, and ship over 1,000 unique orders a day, requires only eight people.
The brand retails in some of the biggest department stores in the world such as
SelfridgesSelfridges is a chain of high end department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. The flagship store in London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK and was opened on 15 March 1909...
,
Harvey NicholsHarvey Nichols , founded in 1813, is an upmarket department store chain. Its original store is in London, Founded in 1813 as a linen shop, it offers many of the world's most prestigious brands in womenswear, menswear, accessories, beauty, food, and home...
and
House of FraserHouse of Fraser is a British department store group with 62 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The flagship London store is House of Fraser on Oxford Street in London whilst the retailer has recently undertaken its largest new store opening in Belfast.Over the years House of Fraser has...
in the UK,
PrintempsPrintemps is a French department store .The flagship Printemps store is located on Boulevard Haussmann in the IXe arrondissement of Paris along with other famous department stores like Galeries Lafayette.There are also other Printemps stores in Paris and throughout France...
in Paris, KaDeWe in Berlin, and
Harvey NicholsHarvey Nichols , founded in 1813, is an upmarket department store chain. Its original store is in London, Founded in 1813 as a linen shop, it offers many of the world's most prestigious brands in womenswear, menswear, accessories, beauty, food, and home...
in Dubai, as well as in small boutiques in various cities around the world. The range is also available from the UK's largest online-only fashion retailer
ASOS.comASOS.com is the UK's largest online-only fashion and beauty store. Primarily aimed at 16-34 year olds, it offers over 19,500 own-label and branded fashion goods. Its full name, As Seen On Screen, was chosen in order to try and show the brand's intention to supply the public with outfits similar to...
. aussieBum's online e-store ships to more than 70 countries.
Advertising
aussieBum promote their products in non-traditional venues on the internet, such as blogs, social networking sites
FacebookFacebook is a global social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and...
,
MySpaceMySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, USA, where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media, which is owned by News Corporation. MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United...
, and the online game
Second LifeSecond Life is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that launched on June 23, 2003, and is accessible via the Internet. A free client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
. Cultivating the image of a larrikin Australian has also helped the company in getting noticed in
overseas markets where residents are curious about Australian culture.
The brand has a popular online following with the
aussieBum being the 7
th most popular search term in Australia.
Celebrities including
Ewan McGregorEwan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor, singer, and adventurer who has had success in mainstream, indie and art house films...
,
Billy ConnollyBilly Connolly, CBE is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin...
, and
Daniel RadcliffeDaniel Jacob Radcliffe is a British actor, best known for playing Harry Potter in the feature film series based on the popular book series....
are fans of the cossies while Australian pop singer
Kylie MinogueKylie Ann Minogue, OBE is an Australian pop singer, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actor on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing her career as a recording artist in 1987...
featured buff men wearing aussieBums in the video clip for
Slow. Soccer superstar and men's fashion trendsetter
David BeckhamDavid Robert Joseph Beckham,
OBE is an English footballer who currently plays in midfield for American Major League Soccer club Los Angeles Galaxy and the England national team....
has also appeared in the brand.
Advertising continues with the brand's distinct cheeky style in campaigns such as Shearing the Rams, which repainted a 100-year old iconic Australian painting with muscle-bound blokes shearing sheep in just their undies.
Wonderjock
In November 2006, the Wonderjock was launched in the aussieBum underwear lines. Wonderjocks have been designed to
lift and
enhance a man's genitals, through the use of a fabric cup used to protrude everything out instead of just down. 50,000 pairs of the new underwear were sold in the first seven days of being released. The name was chosen as a pun on the popular
WonderbraThe Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1935, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses Nadler, founder and majority owner of the Canadian Lady Corset Company, licensed the...
line of push-up bras.
In
May 2007May 2007 is the fifth month of that year. It began on a Tuesday and 31 days later, ended on a Thursday.-International holidays:* May 1 - May Day * May 1 - Labour Day * May 1 - Maharashtra State Day * May 1 - Labour Day...
, the company also introduced Wonderjock technology into their swimwear line. Currently in the Classic, Storm, and Loose varieties, a fabric pouch is used to enhance a man's package, particularly when getting out of cold water. Since their release the Wonderjock styles have been altered and renamed Boosterjock, with the new design giving a more natural shape and less restrictive feel than the earlier version.