You too can wear the official underwear of the Giro d’Italia
You too can wear the official underwear of the Giro d’Italia
Do you love the Giro d’Italia? I mean, do you really love the Giro d’Italia? Do you love it so much that a simple shirt or jacket with Giro branding isn’t enough to convey your love for La Corsa Rosa? Do you love it so much that the only way to profess that love is by wearing appropriately branded intimate apparel?
Boy howdy has Intimissimi Uomo got you covered. Both in a metaphorical sense and perhaps even literally, if you so desire.
If you’ve been paying particularly close attention to this year’s Giro, you might have noticed the name “Intimissimi Uomo” splashed across the white jersey of the youth classification leader. But maybe it’s not a brand name you’re familiar with; maybe you’re not across the European underwear scene as much as you would like.
Intimissimi (which seems to translate as “Most Intimate”) is an Italian clothing brand founded in 1996 that sells all manner of undergarments. While the brand is perhaps best known for its women’s range, it also sells underwear for men, under the name Intimissimi Uomo (as you can probably deduce, “uomo” means “man” in Italian).
For the past two years Intimissimi Uomo has sponsored the best young rider classification at the Giro d’Italia.
The white jersey isn’t designed by Intimissimi Uomo. As with the jerseys of all classification leaders, the best young rider’s jersey is “designed by Castelli and made with a technical fabric produced by Sitip.”
But thankfully for those of us not racing the Giro, but who are in the market for Giro-adjacent off-the-bike apparel, Intimissimi Uomo has some other product lines that it’s done more than slap its logo onto.
You’ve got your Giro d’Italia Cotton Jersey T-Shirt (from €9.90) with “short sleeves and round neck” which is every bit a white T-shirt with a logo on it.
You’ve got your ‘Sports Court’ Giro d’Italia socks (€7.90), which are very much white sports socks with some Giro branding at the top, including a rather fetching pink stripe.
And finally, and most importantly, we’ve got the Giro d’Italia Stretch Supima Cotton Boxers (from €7.90) which are … well yes, they sure look like plain white boxers with a bit of black trim and some Giro d’Italia branding on the waistband.
They do look comfortable though. This guy looks better supported than Mark Cavendish in the final few kilometres of a sprint stage:
Strangely, links to these products on the Intimissimi Uomo homepage don’t go directly to the items themselves; if you’re looking to buy, you’ll need to do a bit more digging to find them. Then again, if you’re the sort of person that loves the Giro so much you want the race’s logo emblazoned on your unmentionables, a little bit of internet sleuthing isn’t likely to deter you.
Sadly, if you’re looking for Giro-themed women’s underwear, you’re going to be disappointed. Again, it’s specifically the men’s brand, Intimissimi Uomo, that’s a “Top Sponsor” of the Giro. Intimissimi as a whole, which focuses on the women’s market, seemingly isn’t concerned with being associated with Italy’s biggest bike race for men, which, on reflection, probably makes sense.
The actual clothing aside, the Intimissimi Uomo sponsorship raises some very important questions. Questions like: what does “official underwear of the 2022 Giro d’Italia” actually mean?
Obviously it means the brand has paid some amount of money to have its logo on the best young rider’s jersey, and for the right to label its jocks “official underwear of the 2022 Giro d’Italia”. But is that it?
Does “official underwear of the 2022 Giro d’Italia” mean that all (male) race officials are wearing Intimissimi Uomo gear? At the commissaires meeting before stage 1 in Budapest, was each official handed a bag of Giro-themed undies to get them through the next three weeks?
And what about the leader of the best young rider classification himself? When Matteo Sobrero (BikeExchange-Jayco) took the Maglia Blanca with a great fourth place in the stage 2 time trial he got a fancy white jersey, but did he also get some Intimissimi Uomo underwear to slide on when he’s not getting about in lycra? Well, actually, he might well have, judging by the photo below.
You have to imagine the box Sobrero’s holding there probably has a T-shirt and some briefs in it (Matteo: if you’re reading this, let us know in the comments below).
Which raises yet more questions. Let’s say Sobrero is intrigued by his new underwear, and he wants to see what all the fuss is about. Does he need to worry about sponsor conflicts? Will BikeExchange-Jayco clothing sponsor Alé be upset if Sobrero is snapped walking to his team bus with an Intimissimi Uomo waistband peeking out above his team-issue tracksuit pants?
These are the big questions coming out of the 105th edition of the Giro d’Italia. We’ll certainly endeavour to have some answers for you very soon.
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