Bali Intimates History

Bali^® intimates knows that beauty begins from within. It is a feeling as well as a look. It's having confidence in everything you do and everything you wear. Beauty is the simple elegance, comfort and fit of Bali intimates. Because when you feel beautiful, you are.

The Bali brand traces its beginning to 1927 when women’s foundation garments were designed to project a flat silhouette. Sara Stein, who worked for a bra manufacturing company, saw the opportunity to deliver a better garment - a product that would appeal to women, yet be functional in construction and fit. Using a small Singer sewing machine tucked in the corner of her small Brooklyn apartment, Sara started to sew a different type of brassiere. Her husband, Sam, a sales clerk with Weber and Heilbrunner, a well-known roaring twenties men’s furnishings store, sold these to stores in the area. The name of the budding enterprise was Fay-Miss, a play on the word “famous.” First year sales were $10,000 – very impressive for a part-time venture in the late 1920’s. In 1935 Fay-Miss acquired a new name: Bali Brassiere Company.

The Steins were not solely interested in cutting and sewing brassieres for commercial profit. Their concern for quality, fit, performance and comfort were key to the company's growth. By 1940, Sam and Sara Stein were considered the innovators of the foundations industry. They introduced the first bias cup brassiere, and the first all-cotton brassiere. Each was designed to be comfortable and enhance shape.

In 1969, with Sam and Sara nearing retirement, the Hanes Corporation of Winston-Salem, North Carolina acquired the controlling interest in the Bali Brassiere Company. One decade later, Hanes Corporation was acquired by Consolidated Foods Company out of Chicago, which in 1985 changed its name to Sara Lee Corporation. In 2006 the spin-off of Hanesbrands Inc. occurred and the Bali brand became one of the significant brands in their intimate apparel portfolio which also included *Playtex^®, Wonderbra^®, Barely There^® and Hanes Her Way^®.

More than 80 years after the company's founding, Bali ^® intimates still adheres to the original concept of designing and producing flattering, comfortable garments for women.