THE STORY BEHIND THE STITCHES

A personal narrative about our journey to what we now call  " Humxn Co. "

In 2010 I moved from the modest town of Hervey Bay to the “big city” I now call home - Brisbane. Like any young 18 year-old I was on the road to self-discovery. Who am I? What is my deeper life purpose? Where can I buy a pair of womens boxer brief shorts in Australia, or anywhere for that matter! So I searched, and I searched some more and I realised who I was and who I wanted to become. But the bigger question for me still remained;  Where can I find androgynous, tomboy style boxer underwear suitable for a woman?!

Being a young LGBTQIA+ identifying humxn I found the task of buying comfortable clothing and underwear a challenging one. I felt that my gender expression, didn’t fit within the stereotypical shopping aisle norms of female clothing. The shirts are too short and tight fitting, gym apparel options are confined to mini shorts and leggings and the underwear comes in 3 styles; skimpy, skimpier, and maximum compression. 

My search for traditional trunk style womens underwear consistently came up blank. So one day,  I visited my mother in Hervey Bay with a pile of work for her to complete. This wasn’t just any work, it was groundbreaking - for myself anyway! I was often coming up with elaborate plans and spontaneous ambitions.

You have probably guessed it by now.  Not only had I freshly come out to my mother as queer, I had bought her a pile of 15 pairs of crispy fresh new underwear straight from the mens aisle. I asked her to cut the crutch out and sew them up to create women's trunk style underwear. So my mother just looked at me endearingly and said “I suppose I could do that”. 

Now my mother is a kind woman, fantastic sewer and religiously avid procrastinator (Love you mum if you read this!). I received 5 pairs during my visit, which are now fondly known as  “ The OG underwear of Humxn Co.”  One of these 5 pairs is still circulating to this day in the underwear drawer. Don’t judge me, it's lovingly kept as a backup pair of underwear seeing as the design still wasn’t perfect. After-all it had a front seam, which for any AFAB body is never a flattering design. Fast forward to 2020 on another visit whilst sitting in my mothers room, I found the remaining 10 pairs of underwear, all pinned ready to sew. I laughed to myself having found them - the underwear, and suddenly a thought hit me - I need to do this - make underwear for people just like me. 

We are in 2020 and there are still to this day no women's boxer shorts in Australia. I brought the idea up to my partner, she had seen the underwear circulating through the wash and agreed with me. It's time to create a movement of change. 

So began our developing journey. Creating womens’ style boxer briefs to help bring to our community a channel of gender expression that is tailored to fit our bodies. To do this we’ve altered the design of traditional mens underwear by adding in a gusset thus creating a flat fit front to optimize the functionality and comfort of our briefs.

This journey has been incredible, challenging and life changing and I am so thankful to now be in a position to create change for our community and to do it all with my best friend and soul mate by my side.

If you have taken the time to read this story, I thank you for your time, generosity and support. Together we can really pioneer a future of inclusive apparel.

Yours truly,

                                            Aimee Co-founder of Humxn Co.