Seda Oturan, courtesy of 25th hour
The lingerie industry doesn’t usually make headlines, but something real is shifting there. Not a dramatic overhaul, more like a slow exhale. The category is quietly moving away from the push-up-and-perform model it rode for decades, toward something harder to package but more durable: the idea that what you wear underneath actually matters to you, not just to whoever might see it.
That shift has been building for a while. You can trace it back to broader changes in how people shop, the move away from impulse buying, the growing skepticism toward trend cycles, the increasing weight consumers put on quality over quantity. It showed up in outerwear first, then beauty, then wellness. Now it’s showing up in intimates, and the brands paying attention are pulling ahead.
Founded by Seda Oturan, the label isn’t built around a seasonal drop strategy or a campaign hook. It’s built around a concept, the “25th hour,” that sliver of time you carve out for yourself when the day is technically done. After the meetings, the obligations, the performance of being present for everyone else. The hour that doesn’t officially exist but somehow always finds you. It’s a small idea, but it’s a specific one, and specificity tends to age better than broad appeal.
Oturan didn’t arrive at this concept by accident. Her background informs both the aesthetic and the philosophy behind it. The collections develop slowly, deliberately so, with an emphasis on construction that holds up over time, not just over a photoshoot. Silhouettes are refined without being fussy and materials are sourced carefully. The result is sensual in a quiet way, the kind that doesn’t announce itself but accumulates over time into something you actually reach for.
From a market standpoint, this positioning lands at exactly the right moment. Premium and contemporary lingerie is one of the faster-growing segments in fashion right now, and the reason isn’t complicated: consumers have gotten more deliberate. Fewer pieces, better quality, longer wear. That pattern is showing up across categories, and intimates are no exception. Shoppers are asking whether something fits well, whether it lasts, whether it actually feels good to put on in the morning. Aesthetics still matter, they always will, but they’re no longer the whole argument.
The brands that are struggling right now tend to be the ones still leading with trends. New colorways, new campaigns, constant refresh. It worked for a long time. But there’s a growing segment of consumers who’ve started tuning that out, who’ve gotten better at identifying when a brand is selling them a feeling versus actually delivering one. That segment is willing to spend more, but they need a reason that goes beyond pretty packaging and 25th Hour gives them one.
The “25th hour” framing isn’t just a tagline, it reframes the entire category. Lingerie as something you wear for yourself, not for an occasion. Not for someone else’s gaze, not for a specific moment, but for the daily, private experience of feeling at ease in your own body. It’s a subtle repositioning, but it cuts against decades of category convention, and it resonates because it reflects how a lot of women actually think about intimate apparel now, even if the industry has been slow to catch up.
Oturan’s role as founder and creative lead matters here too. Founder-led brands carry a different kind of credibility than those built by a committee, there’s a coherence to the decision-making, a consistency in the vision that consumers can feel even when they can’t articulate it. When the person who designed the product is also the person who defined the philosophy behind it, those two things tend to line up in ways that are hard to manufacture. You see it in the details: the restraint in the silhouettes, the lack of obvious branding, the sense that nothing is there by accident.
That coherence is, increasingly, what builds loyalty. Not campaigns. Not collaborations. Not a viral moment. The brands with staying power right now are the ones where the product and the point of view are the same thing, where you can’t really separate what they make from why they make it.
25th Hour Lingerie is early in that arc, building the kind of foundation that tends to compound.
