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Spanx makes shapewear, bras, underwear, leggings, and other everyday clothing that women wear to look smooth and feel comfortable under their outfits.
Spanx is a clothing company that made its name selling shapewear — the stretchy undergarments that smooth out lumps and bumps under a dress or a pair of tight pants. Sara Blakely started it in Atlanta in 2000 with a simple fix: she cut the feet off a pair of control-top pantyhose so she could wear open-toe shoes without visible panty lines. That small hack turned into a product, and the product turned into a brand.
The company sells directly to shoppers, mostly through its own website and its own stores, and it also sells through big retailers. The core customer is a woman getting dressed for a wedding, a workday, or a night out who wants her clothes to sit right. Shapewear is the engine of the business, but Spanx has pushed into bras, underwear, leggings, and even denim and swimwear, so it can dress more of a woman's body than just the layer underneath. What makes Spanx strong is the brand name. "Spanx" is close to a generic word for shapewear, which is a rare thing for a clothing label. But that same strength is a vulnerability: the business leans on a category that rises and falls with dress-up occasions, and it faces competition from cheaper knockoffs, from big underwear brands, and from a broader cultural shift toward looser, comfier fashion. In 2021, Blackstone Blackstone bought a majority stake in Spanx, valuing the company at $1.2 billion — a big payday that made Blakely a billionaire and put outside investors in charge of growth.
Spanx is private, so it doesn't publish detailed financials, but the Blackstone deal gave a rare peek at its scale. The company is now led by a CEO brought in after the investment, and it has been working to turn a one-product wonder into a full apparel brand while keeping the playful, problem-solving spirit that made it famous in the first place.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026