Bench Body: From RP to PRC

Underwear is a powerful thing. For something kept hidden, given a conventional setting (barring Madonna’s ‘80s principles and Justice League dress codes), it has become one of man’s biggest necessities. We find it difficult to get on a day without it. Underwear can entice, ignite desire, and boost one’s ego. It can even fuel a fire in the literal sense as it did when women suffragists, earlier in the century, threw their bras into a bonfire to assert women’s rights. Women can’t have too much underwear; it has made them feel protected, supposedly helps safeguard their health against breast cancer, and unleashes their inner vixen.

In the case of Bench, underwear can cram together hundreds – gay, straight, barely legal, past their prime – under one gigantic roof, each one held captivated by beautiful bodies in wear usually reserved for concealment. Bench’s underwear show is an awaited event that comes round every two years.

The first show, "Brief Encounters" was staged in 2000, three years after Bench plastered Jomari Yllana onto a billboard wearing the brand’s undergarments. The show sufficiently roused public interest and made for a springboard to launch another concept, unrecognized in this part of the retail scene: a boutique dedicated to underwear for both men and women.

The first Bench Body store, an outlet highlighting the Pinoy’s growing, yet unprofessed, desire for fashionable underwear, opened in Glorietta nearing the yearend of 2002. Selling undergarments, it introduced a new kind of concept store, which, during the time of its conception, was still untried in the local retail scene. Through Bench Body, sales of the brand’s underwear escalated, and the popularity of the store’s chosen image models – from Jon Hall to Marc Nelson to Robby Mananquil to Luke Jickain – reached phenomenal heartthrob status.

Bench Body breached convention a bit more by introducing alternatives to the plain and basic black and white brief underwear. Higher, briefer cuts were introduced for men and red – bright, sexy, arousing red – underwear was the novel offering when the first Bench Body store opened. Since then, Bench Body’s store count has increased to 12, with its farthest points at SM Pampanga and SM Lucena, and has pioneered the influx of more unconventional underwear into the market. Their present summer collection, following a spate of baby blues and retro argyle-print underwear, introduces bright florals for women and striped underwear for men. The follow-up collection introduces brighter, close to neon, shades. New Bench Body mannequins Corey Wills, Iago Praterta, and Alvin Alfonso top the testosterone charts in saturated limes and vivid oranges.

Not content with monopolizing the local underwear market, Bench took their concept to international ground and set up shop in China. To fulfill their goals of establishing Bench as a world-class brand, the company had earlier opened a Bench apparel store in Shanghai. The concept of an underwear store was also an unfamiliar notion to the Chinese market and when Bench Body was first launched in Shanghai and Xiamen, it was met with a lot of welcome and curious anticipation.

There are now six Bench Body stores in the People’s Republic, and two more are slated to open soon, mostly across Shanghai and Xiamen. Franchised Bench Body outlets can also be found in Hangzhou and Xian. While the Chinese market has found favor with polka-dotted and floral undies, and sexy mesh and lace lingerie for women, traditional Chinese culture has assured that Bench Body’s red underwear series is constantly kept on the shelves.

Encouraging sales is the inclusion of Chinese-born international supermodel Lu Yan into the roster of Bench Body models. The svelte mannequin, who is highly-regarded in her hometown, was first photographed for Bench Body in 2002, along with local Bench endorsers, for billboards and lighted posters found in key areas in Xiamen and Shanghai.

Even the underwear show that garners loads of attention in Manila has been exported to mainland China. To formally launch Bench Body in Shanghai last year, Bench staged "One Night Only Shanghai," an underwear fest that put together Bench Body models Jon Hall and Francine Prieto with Lu Yan on the same catwalk (Bench would later stage its third underwear show in Manila, "One Night Only" at the Araneta Center).

From the Philippines to China, Bench has upped the repute of undergarments. Bench Body’s rapid expansion proves that more and more people are beginning to value underwear as a fashion piece, not just a required daily change. Because of the Bench Body stores, what was once considered taboo has become public matter, a manifestation of one’s personality (even if it still merits concealment), and, to some extent, a stylish status symbol.

In the Philippines, Bench Body can be found at Glorietta, Alabang Town Center, Robinson’s Galleria, SM Megamall, SM Pampanga, and SM Lucena. In China, it can be found at Grand Raffles City, Metro Town, and Wings, all in Shanghai; SM City and World Trade Center in Xiamen.