Jockey Underwear

The history of Jockey

Jockey changed the world’s underwear in 1934 when one of their designers created a strange, new kind of underwear called “the brief”. Unlike any underwear at that time, it provided men with “masculine support”, available at that time only through the use of an athletic supporter, sometimes called a “jock strap”. To discretely describe the function of the new-fangled underwear, they called it the Jockey (JOCK-ey) brief. Today, Jockey is a recognized trademark in over 120 countries.

Jockey briefs sold out in every store almost immediately, so their “Mascu-liner” airplane flew special deliveries of “masculine support” Jockey briefs to desperate retailers. Our “brief” success has lasted more than 65 years. To this day, the brief is the most popular style of men’s underwear in the United States.

Jockey quickly joined the war effort. Our famous “Jockey Boy” logo promoted war bonds, and Jockey factories churned out underwear and parachutes for the Allied troops.

It was a revolutionary idea: looks are important where men’s underwear is concerned. Jockey challenged men with slogans like, “Why not have fun with your underwear?” And, fashion underwear was born. Looks were no longer irrelevant as men chose colors and even animal stripe patterns for their underwear.

Their continuing mission was to deliver Jockey underwear to every person on earth. But when they submitted this design to NASA, they began to reach for the stars. This special astronaut underwear included special elastic straps around the cuffs to minimize “creeping” in a weightless environment.

In 1982 women won the right to wear Jockey underwear as they introduced their first complete line of women’s intimates. Under the leadership of our first woman CEO, Harry H. Wolf, Sr.’s daughter, the new JOCKEY FOR HER line turned out to be the company’s most successful venture since the creation of the first brief in 1934.