Site statistics collected by Style in View, a search engine which aggregates clothes, shoes and accessories from highstreet and online retailers like ASOS, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer, revealed lingerie to be the most popular search term in the week leading up to February 14th. Increases in sales were seen general rising accordingly across the lingerie range but it was the g-string that triumphed over other forms of lingerie outselling the french knicker, brief and bikini.
The Style in View website currently lists over 7000 items of lingerie, including over 500 types of thongs.
The underwear (made infamous by Sisqo’s 1999 hit ‘Thong Song’ and often colloquially referred to as ‘floss’) saw a 175% rise in sales compared to the preceding week, with just a 140%, 97% and 68% increase respectively for the other shapes.
Digital marketing analyst Mike Francis suggested the fascination with the g-string could be due to the fact that, “The g-string feels a little ‘pornstar in the 80s;’ there’s a certain risqué appeal to it, that so much can be done with so little material. It also eliminates the problem of VPL, which is never a good look.”
However, surveys conducted prior to this show that women most commonly choose the g-string as the least popular cut of underwear, with only 32% describing it as their favourite shape, which suggests that it is British men that are the true fans of the g-string and behind this sudden increase in sales, possibly buying it as a gift for their loved ones for Valentine’s day.
With studies reporting that thousands of pounds worth of underwear given as gifts by men to women go unworn or used only once, men who gifted a g-string this Valentine’s Day might have found it struck a bum note.
