Unlike many of the other underwear brands to pop onto the radar in recent years, Tim Wildman’s saucy, sexy WildmanT(www.wildmant.com) brand began with a caffeine-fueled practical joke, rather than a business plan.

Though Tim studied fashion design at Syracuse University and always had an interest in underwear, nothing in design school gave him any insight into how to get into the men’s underwear business, which at the time was only beginning to emerge as a breakout fashion category. His passion stifled, Tim got sidelined in the publishing business in New York and ultimately launched his own web design company after moving to Palm Springs, California years later.

Shortly after his move to the desert, Tim’s mother became ill and went from working ninety hours a week to not being able to work at all, so he moved her out to Palm Springs to be near him.

As his mom’s health improved, Tim asked one of his web design clients if he could duplicate their site and re-brand it so he could create something for his mother to do. The company said yes and WildmanT was born as a shell of the Go Softwear site.

It wasn’t until he set out to do a photo shoot to highlight a few Go Softwear styles for his new website that Wildman’s passion for fashion was reignited. Frustrated by the way the flash from his camera kept washing out the model’s “package,” Tim tried everything he could think to fix the situation because, as he says, “What gay man would buy underwear from a guy with no package?”

Ultimately, with his mother looking on, Tim figured out that if he took an elastic band, looped it around the model’s nether region, and then pinned it to the waistband of the underwear, he could achieve the definition he sought.

Later that evening, after several cups of coffee, Tim found himself at home alone laughing about his farcical discovery at the afternoon photo shoot. Then came a revelation. “I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if I created a sample of this , took a picture of it, and threw it online just to freak out my mother. I called it a Ball Lifter just because it was funny,” Tim told me cracking himself up at the recollection.

Putting thought into action, Tim stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, actually created a sample of his product, and put it online along with an animated cartoon called “No Package Stan” about a cute little blonde boy whose life is changed by Wildman’s body contouring invention.

The next morning, Tim awoke to several messages from his mother asking him what she was supposed to do with all these orders they were getting for something called “The Ball Lifter.” Overnight, Tim’s YouTube video about No Package Stan had gone viral and the orders started pouring in from all over the world.

The joke, it turns out, was on him.

“It sold and it continued to sell,” Tim says of WildmanT’s signature design. “So I thought, we’re not going to turn this away. I bought a sewing machine and we started sewing the damn things and selling them out of my kitchen.”

Before long a company in China came calling and wanted to wholesale the Ball Lifter, so Tim found and hired a seamstress, which he jokes was no mean feat for a product like his in suburban Palm Springs. From that moment WildmanT became a full-fledged brand in its own right, rather than a re-seller of other underwear concerns.

Inspired by his initial success, Tim designed a more extreme version of the Ball Lifter, also partially as a joke (albeit a logical one), and called it the Protruder. That style took off as well, racking up big sales in Europe and Japan.

Next came the Protruder II and a full line of both underwear and swimwear, all with detachable suspensory rings built in and all borne of Tim’s philosophy, which he describes in his own words as, “Instead of strangling your crotch, lift your crotch“.

As for what makes WildmanT uniquely reflective of American culture, Tim believes that it has something to do with the boldness of his styles and the sort of go big or go home sensibility they convey. “It’s an in-your-face product,” Tim says flatly, “and that’s part of our culture [as Americans]. If you’re going to do something, do it big. If you’re going to announce something, announce it loud, and that is exactly what all our products do.”

The post Designing Men: Tim Wildman appeared first on .

Peruse the sexy, primal, body-hugging styles in Brazilian designer Anderson Prata’s recently launched Elementos(www.elementosbrazil.com) underwear and swimwear lines, and you’d probably never guess they were the brainchild of a former accountant.

Urged by his family and unsure of his own passions, Anderson graduated from college with a degree in corporate finance and accounting and spent two and a half years as a financial auditor for Price Waterhouse Coopers before coming to the conclusion that his outgoing personality was not necessarily an ideal match for the dry, buttoned-up world of number-crunching.

In an unusual move, Anderson boldly voiced his concerns about his ill-fitting career choice to the Price Waterhouse human resources department and ultimately got the advice that would change the course of his life. The company’s human resources department representative told him that he needed to do something that he loved, rather than waste his personality and talent on a career that didn’t inspire him to get out of bed every day. Anderson eventually quit and began mulling over his desire to start his own business. As he considered his options, Prata says he found the answer to his career dilemma right inside his own apartment.

“I started looking around for the things that I like,” says the accountant turned designer. “Then one day I was talking to a friend, and I realized that half my closet was underwear and swimwear. I could care less about going shopping for jeans or pants or shirts, but swimwear and underwear are the only things I really enjoy shopping for. I wanted to do something different, and then I realized that none of the [brands] had the Brazilian spirit. There was nothing from Brazil that was cool and vibrant and international. So that’s how Elementos came about. It was about creating a new, international, Brazilian-themed line.”

Armed with his theme, Prata set about creating his first collection, ensuring along the way that every aspect of the line would reflect the Brazilian lifestyle. “In all my designs, the cut and the style are based in Brazil’s fashion. Even the fabrics. It’s all from Brazil,” explains the designer. As for what differentiates Elementos from other brands, “It’s most evident in the swimwear. The cut is very Brazilian. Many Americans are surprised to learn that the real Brazilian cut features a wide side. Women in Brazil may prefer the string bikini, but Brazilian men wear a square cut that fits the body perfectly and reveals the contour of their strong thighs.”

While the eco-friendly briefs in this season’s collection are constructed with fiber of bamboo and feature Brazilian settle tattoo prints, the predominant color in the new Elementos swim collection is aqua green, inspired by the iridescent splendor of the ocean at Ipanema Beach. “Brazilians have a strong bond with the ocean. We respect it for its massiveness and magnificence along with its gentleness,” says Prata.Prata is also quick to point out that his collection not only reflects Brazilian fashion but Brazilian culture as well. “The underwear is inspired by Brazil’s Carioca lifestyle.” Similarly, his environmentally conscious focus is equally representative of Brazilian culture, according to the designer.

Long-term, Anderson expresses an interest in expanding his collection to include several categories and maybe even a line for women. “I want to have six lines of products,” the budding designer chirps optimistically. “I first started out with briefs, and now I’ve added trunks and swimwear and eventually I want to have boxers or jockstraps, board shorts, which are also very Brazilian, and tank tops. And then maybe I’ll get into women’s…I’m getting a lot of pull from women who crave and want Brazilian swimwear… but I’m not sure I’m going to tap into that.”

The post Designing Men: Anderson Prata appeared first on .

If there’s one thing that Stephen Ristefsky is clear about, it’s that theRistefsky Macheda (www.ristefskymacheda.com) brand is more about sophisticated design, high-end fabrication, and an up-market clientele, than it is about gimmicky, cutesy prints and styles.

“We’re not a fun-derwear brand,” co-founder Stephen says plainly, schooling me in his thick Australian accent, when we chatted recently by telephone. “Though there’s a huge market for that and a lot of brands are finding success in that area, we’re the opposite of that.”

The brainchild of lifelong friends Stephen Ristefsky and Vincent Macheda, the Sydney-based line has, from its inception, placed a unique emphasis on offering men’s underwear and swimwear styles that are both refined and fashion-forward—two elements that the style makers behind the design house believed to be missing in the marketplace when they first launched back in 2005.

After spending years lamenting the fact that there was no underwear with styling or fabrication that seemed worthy of an Armani suit or a pair of Dolce & Gabbana jeans, Stephen and Vincent decided to create a product line that would bridge the gap and reinvent underwear as a fashion accessory, rather than simply a necessity for men.

“Ten years ago you only had Kmart or Target or some ten-pack brand of underwear,” Stephen offers upon reflection. “We thought that wasn’t right. If you’re going to spend $1,000 or $2,000 on a suit, you definitely want to finish it off with a great pair of underwear. If you have a successful night out, you want to make sure that the last thing that comes off is a great representation of who you are.”

“The last thing you want is to look expensive and then look cheap right at the end,” he continued with a mischievous laugh. “So we decided this is where we want to go.”

Ristefsky Macheda found success right out of the box with a loungewear collection that was a massive hit at Milan fashion week. In fact, the inaugural collection completely sold out, which was quite a coup for such a debut. Despite that initial loungewear success, however, Stephen and Vincent went back to the drawing board and focused on developing their underwear brand, which was equally well-received in Australia and is now making headway in America, in no small part due to their splashy ad campaign featuring Make Me A Supermodel runner-up Jonathan Waud as the face of the brand.

The fashionable duo have also added swimwear that bears the stamp of the “high-end affordable” category they continue to pioneer.

“We extend that same idea to beachwear,” says Stephen. “Gone are the days when you’re just wearing a pair of Speedos and off you go into the water. People are spending more time on the beach, lying on the sand tanning, and people are accessorizing more.”

Through their designs, Stephen and Vincent hope that people begin to see a different side of Australian life and better understand the diversity of their homeland.

“Australia is about more than surf and sand,” Stephen explains. “If you know Australians well, you know we’re pretty relaxed people, and we’re out there to have a good time. Ristefsky Macheda represents exactly that. Australia is also very multicultural, and it has huge cosmopolitan nature, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, and Ristefsky Macheda represents that as well. We take the cosmopolitan side of fashion and bring that to the beach, to underwear, and to our campaigns. We truly know another side of Australia and that is the sophisticated, cosmopolitan nature of the country.”

The post Designing Men: Stephen Ristefsky & Vincent Macheda appeared first on .