Lizzo's Shapewear Brand to Defy Beauty Archetypes and Standards

If anyone is an advocate for feeling “good as hell”, it’s Lizzo. On March 30th, the Grammy award-winning artist revealed a new project that has been five years in the making – Yitty, her very own shapewear brand. In partnership with Kate Hudson’s Fabletics, the new size-inclusive shapewear label is “for every damn body” with sizes ranging from 6X to Xs. Known for spreading positivity through her female empowerment anthems such as the iconic Truth Hurts or with her TikToks, Lizzo wants to infuse the same messages of self-love into her brand. 

This launch is one of the latest of a long list of celebrity-endorsed brands. Though the most common of such is within the beauty industry, Yitty enters the market as a new competitor to Skims, Kim Kardashian’s solution wear brand. Launched in 2019, Skims helped to jumpstart a revolution in the shapewear industry and reinvigorated the apparel category.

While Kardashian’s brand has shown incredible success, it also demonstrated that there is still much room for improvement and growth across the various shapewear categories in the market. New entrants are able to differentiate themselves and stand out from their competitors by focusing on offering colours that complement a wide range of skin tones and, of course, sizes that complement a wide variety of body types, all while still including customer favourite styles such as bodysuits and biker shorts, for example. 

That is where Lizzo’s Yitty comes in, a brand designed for “Every Body”. Having spent the majority of her life wearing shapewear pieces to twist and change the way she looks in order to fit into the accepted archetypes and standards of beauty, Lizzo created Yitty not as “an invitation to change who you are” but as an “opportunity to be who you are on your terms”.

In a way that is in accordance with Lizzo's advocacy, her new label is not about hiding and being shameful of shapewear but rather embracing it the same way we are to embrace our bodies. Unlike other brands that focus on skin-like or nude palettes, Yitty brings to the market bold and vivid colours accompanied by different patterns.

Remaining in the same “no-shame” optic, this is “shapewear you can wear underwear, overwear, anywhere”, meaning it gives consumers the freedom to wear the product how they feel most comfortable and thus fighting the current restrictive state of shapewear. 

Yitty is more of a passion project rather than a fashion product. It’s about selling confidence and the mentality that we should feel free to do whatever we want with our bodies, wear what we feel good in and stop being ashamed of shapewear.