Underwear for Dress Pants, Seamless No Show Panties

What underwear to wear under dress pants

Dress pants are harder on underwear than jeans. Denim is thick enough to hide a seam. Suiting is not: wool blends, ponte, crepe and stretch twill are thin, smooth and cut close through the seat, and most women's trousers have no back pockets to break up the view. Whatever sits underneath gets outlined, and you find out in the elevator mirror or under conference room lighting.

Three things decide whether a pair shows. The edge comes first, because a sewn elastic leg presses a ridge into the skin and the fabric follows it. The rise comes second, since a waistband that ends below the trouser waist draws a line across the hip. Color comes last and only matters under light or unlined pants. Get the edge right and you have solved most of it, which is why every seamless style here is laser cut and bonded, not stitched.

The best pick for each kind of dress pants

If you only want one answer, start with the Bonded Seamless Hipster. It covers the most kinds of trousers and it is the pair people who dislike thongs end up wearing to work.

Thong, hipster or brief for the office

You do not have to wear a thong to avoid panty lines. That advice comes from the days when the only alternative was a sewn cotton bikini. A bonded edge changes the math, because the edge is as thin as the fabric itself.

Pick by how the pants fit. Under pull-on ponte and anything cut like a legging, a thong is still the safest choice. Under regular suit trousers with a little ease through the seat, a seamless hipster or brief is invisible and far easier to forget about during a ten hour day. Under high-waisted styles, match the rise: a high waisted panty ends where the trousers start, a low one cuts across the middle of the hip.

What to avoid under suiting: lace with a raised pattern, bows and trims at the front, thick picot elastic and boyshorts that end mid thigh. All of them print through a pressed trouser front.

What color underwear works under dress pants

Under black, navy and charcoal trousers, wear black. It is the easiest case and any of the styles here will do. Under white, ivory, stone, light gray and pastel trousers, wear a shade close to your skin and never white. White underwear looks brighter than skin through light fabric and outlines the whole pair, which is the same rule that applies to underwear for white pants.

The three seamless styles come in Nude Deep, a warm caramel brown that suits medium to deep skin. For fair to light-medium skin, the Cotton Bikini Panty comes in Nude Light, a warm sand. Unlined summer suiting is the fabric where this matters most, so hold the trousers up to a window before you decide. If you can see your hand through them, color counts.

Fabric for a full day at a desk

Our seamless underwear is 76 percent nylon and 24 percent elastane with a 100 percent cotton gusset. It is light, dries fast and stays flat when you sit, stand and sit again. For most office days, that is the pair to wear.

If you run warm, sit for long stretches or wear lined wool trousers in summer, cotton is more comfortable. Ours is 57 percent cotton, 38 percent modal and 5 percent elastane, with covered waistbands that sit flat. The edge is slightly thicker than a bonded one, so keep cotton for trousers with some room in them and seamless for the fitted pairs. More cuts are on the cotton underwear for women page.

Fit matters as much as fabric. A pair one size too small digs in and makes a line however it is made, and a pair too big bunches under a flat front. Measure your hips and check the panty size chart, XS (hips 34 to 35 inches) through XXL (hips 46 to 48 inches).

Build a work week pack

Five pairs cover Monday to Friday, and five is where the price drops most. Every style on this page counts toward pack pricing: any 3 for $32, any 5 for $45 or any 7 for $55, applied in your bag automatically, in any mix of cuts, colors and sizes. Bought one at a time the same five pairs are $60.

A good work week five is two Bonded Seamless Hipsters, one Seamless High-Rise Brief, one No-Show Seamless Thong for the clingy pair of pants and one cotton brief for the long day. The ready-made Seamless No-Lines 5 pack is close to that already. If you would like fresh pairs to arrive every month without reordering, the Panty Club starts at $14. US shipping is $5.95 and free over $50, in a plain mailer, in 3 to 7 business days.