Uniqlo Airism vs Marks and Spencer: Which Everyday Brief Wins?
Uniqlo AIRism against Marks and Spencer briefs on heat, tailoring, waistbands, sizing and how each pair ages, with a plain answer about which one to buy.
Sunspel vs Hanro: Two Ways to Spend Serious Money
Sunspel vs Hanro, compared on fabric, cut, waistband and how long each pair lasts. Sea Island cotton against Austrian knitting, and an answer at the end.
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There is a point, usually somewhere in a man's thirties, when the multipack stops being the obvious answer and he goes looking for the good stuff. What he finds is confusing, because the two most likely destinations look superficially identical. Both are old, both are European, both cost several times what a supermarket pair costs, and they are pursuing completely different ideas.
Sunspel is trying to give you the finest cotton in the world with as little between you and it as possible.
Hanro is trying to build a garment that will still be the same shape in fifteen years.
Those are not the same project, and once you see the difference you will know instantly which one you want. This article is about how to see it.
The histories, which are not decoration
Both use their age as a selling point, and in both cases the history is genuinely load bearing.
Sunspel was founded in 1860 by Thomas Hill in Nottingham, then the centre of Britain's lace and hosiery trade. From around 1900 the company was importing Sea Island cotton from the Caribbean, and the material became so central that in 1935 the underwear line took the name Sunspel, a reference to the sunny spells of the islands where the cotton grew. The company formally became Sunspel Ltd in 1937, the same year the factory moved to Long Eaton in Derbyshire, where it still operates. In 1947 John Hill, the founder's great-grandson, brought the boxer short to Britain after encountering it on an American honeymoon, reworking it with a back panel and flattened seams. The family sold the business in 2005.
Hanro was founded in 1884 in Liestal, Switzerland, by Albert Handschin, who began with hand knitting. Carl Ronus joined in 1895, the business became Handschin and Ronus, and the contracted trademark Hanro was registered in 1913. The founders were early adopters of circular knitting, the technology that makes a fine, dimensionally stable jersey possible and still what the company sells.
The Austrian Huber Group took a majority stake in 1991 and full ownership shortly after. That is why Hanro's cloth is now knitted in Austria rather than Switzerland, at a facility in Vorarlberg operating as Arula, the rebranded former Huber Tricot knitting business, named after Mons Arula, Latin for the Arlberg range.
So: Sunspel is an English brand with an English factory that does not make its underwear. Hanro is a Swiss brand that is now Austrian-owned and knits in Austria. Both are more complicated than the marketing suggests, and more interesting for it Slip: Why European Briefs Fit Differently.
Where the garments are actually made
This is the bit that surprises people, and it deserves its own section.
Sunspel's Long Eaton factory is real, it still runs, and it is where the T-shirts that made the brand famous are made. The underwear is not made there. Sunspel's Sea Island cotton briefs are made in Portugal, from cotton grown in the West Indies and spun in Switzerland. The Superfine briefs are also made in Portugal. Hanro knits roughly four fifths of its own cloth in-house in Vorarlberg and sews in Portugal.
Notice what those have in common. Both companies sew in Portugal. Both source and finish their cloth elsewhere in Europe. The supply chains are, structurally, more alike than either brand's storytelling would lead you to believe.
The difference is where each has kept control. Sunspel controls the fibre. It has spent more than a century building a relationship with the rarest cotton in the world and it buys the best of it. Hanro controls the cloth. It owns the knitting machines and knits its own fabric, a much rarer thing in modern apparel than owning a brand The Fabric Bible: What Your Briefs Are Actually Made Of.
That is the whole split. Sunspel bets on the raw material. Hanro bets on the manufacturing.
Fabric, in detail
Sunspel's flagship brief is 100 percent Sea Island cotton, and Sea Island is not a marketing adjective. It is an extra-long staple cotton grown in the West Indies in small quantities, with fibres long enough to spin into a yarn that is smoother, stronger and lustrous in a way ordinary cotton is not. Sunspel has it spun in Switzerland and knitted into a light, fluid jersey. It feels, and there is no way to write this without sounding like a catalogue, closer to silk than cotton.
Below that sits Sunspel's Superfine cotton, also 100 percent long staple cotton, also a light jersey, also made in Portugal. It is the range most people actually buy and it is excellent. There are stretch cotton and Tencel ranges too, for men who want a bit of give superfine cotton brief.
Hanro's approach is mercerisation. Its Cotton Sporty brief is 100 percent mercerised cotton in a single jersey. Mercerisation is a caustic treatment applied to the yarn under tension, which swells the fibre, increases lustre, improves dye uptake and makes it measurably stronger and more tear-resistant than untreated cotton. Hanro is direct about what it gets: softness, sheen and a smoother surface. It is a different route to the destination Sunspel reaches through fibre selection.
Further up the range, Hanro's Cotton Superior brief is 93 percent mercerised long staple Egyptian cotton with 7 percent elastane. Hanro also uses Giza and Pima cottons, organic and recycled cottons, merino, cashmere, silk and linen, and Sea Island cotton too, which undercuts the idea that Sea Island is Sunspel's exclusive territory.
Which fabric is better has no clean answer. The Sunspel Sea Island is the more remarkable thing to put on. The Hanro mercerised cotton is the more dependable thing to own.
Cut and construction
Here the two brands separate sharply and it is the most practical part of the comparison.
Sunspel's philosophy is subtraction. The company describes stripping back the seams to the minimum, and the garments are cut close, with a low profile, flatlocked seams and heavy stitching. The Sea Island brief has no front opening. The Superfine brief has one. Both use an elasticated waistband and both are light, quiet garments that try to be nothing at all Anatomy of a Brief: Every Panel, Seam and Stitch Explained.
Hanro's philosophy is addition. The Cotton Sporty brief has a covered elasticated waistband and covered elasticated legs, a lined pouch, and a cut that sits lower on the body. The Cotton Superior has a seamed contour pouch, a higher rise and a soft band with the logo inside rather than on display. These are constructed garments, built in the German-speaking tradition where underwear is engineering rather than fashion How a Brief Should Actually Fit.
The support difference follows directly. A Hanro brief with a lined or seamed contour pouch holds a shape. A Sunspel brief with minimal seaming finds one. If support is what you are buying, that is not a close call. The visual difference follows too. A Sunspel brief under a light trouser disappears, because there is almost nothing in it to print through. A Hanro brief is more present, and that is a slightly less invisible garment under summer tailoring Briefs for the Office: The Tailoring Argument.
The waistbands
Both companies do this properly and neither is trying to sell you a logo.
Sunspel uses an elasticated band the company describes as its highest quality elastic, attached to a very light garment. It is unobtrusive and it works. Because the body is so light, the band is proportionally the stiffest thing in the brief, and on a thin Sea Island jersey you feel that contrast more than you would like.
Hanro's covered elastic is the more sophisticated solution and it is what the whole German-speaking school does. The elastic is enclosed in fabric rather than exposed, so nothing scratchy touches skin, the load spreads evenly and the band ages gracefully. It also means a wider, softer band, slightly more visible under a close trouser. On comfort over a long day, Hanro. On invisibility, Sunspel. A genuine trade, and neither answer is wrong. Finishing at this level is also where the money goes at the very top of the market, and whether that last step up is worth taking is a fair question. Is Zimmerli Actually Worth It?
Durability, which is the whole argument
If you are spending this kind of money you are entitled to ask how long it lasts, and here the two brands are not equal.
Sunspel's Sea Island cotton is spectacular and delicate. Extra-long staple cotton spun very fine into a light jersey is a low-mass garment, and low-mass garments wear through. The brand recommends a gentle thirty degree wash and no tumble drying, and it means it. Treated carefully, a Sea Island brief gives you several years of the nicest cotton you have ever worn, and it will thin at the seat before a heavier garment would.
Hanro's mercerised cotton is built for the opposite outcome. Mercerisation increases tensile strength. The Cotton Sporty brief is rated for a sixty degree machine wash, which is a confident thing to print on a fine cotton garment and tells you exactly how the fabric was engineered. Covered elastic outlasts exposed elastic. A seamed pouch keeps its shape rather than relaxing into whatever it is asked to hold.
Hanro is the more durable garment by a clear margin and Sunspel is the more pleasurable one. If your definition of value is cost per wear, Hanro wins. If it is how good the good days feel, Sunspel does Buy It Once: The Durability Guide to Briefs That Last Years. Either way the washing rules are the same and they are not optional at this price: cool wash, gentle cycle, mesh bag, never a tumble dryer, and do not stretch the band over your hips to get them on How to Wash Underwear Properly.
Value, without pretending
Both brands sit well above the high street and well below the very top of the market, where Zimmerli lives and the arithmetic becomes a different conversation entirely Is Zimmerli Actually Worth It?.
Within their own tier, Hanro's mid-range cotton lines are the better buy on pure economics, because they last longer. Sunspel's Superfine cotton brief is the value pick in that range, and a genuinely lovely garment for meaningfully less than the Sea Island.
Nobody needs either of these, and that should be said plainly. A good Schiesser or a well chosen Portuguese cotton brief does most of the job for a fraction of the money, and there is no shame in stopping there The Best Cheap Underwear That Is Not a False Economy. What you buy above that line is refinement, not adequacy.
Who each one is for, and the answer
Buy Sunspel if you want the material. If the appeal of expensive underwear is the sensation of extraordinary cotton on skin, if you wear slim tailoring and want the garment to vanish, if you do not need much structural support, and if you are the sort of person who will actually hand wash things. The Sea Island brief is one of the genuinely remarkable garments in men's clothing Sea Island cotton brief.
Buy Hanro if you want the garment. If you want support, a covered waistband that will never dig in on a fourteen hour day, something you can wash at temperature without anxiety, if you are broader through the thigh, and if your instinct about expensive things is that they should last rather than dazzle. The mercerised cotton lines are the sweet spot Hanro mercerised cotton brief.
If you made me choose one, I would take the Hanro, and the reason is not aesthetic. Underwear is a garment you wear for sixteen hours and think about for none of them, and Hanro is better at being unnoticed for a long time while Sunspel is better at being noticed for a moment. The covered elastic, the lined pouch, the sixty degree wash and the in-house knitting all point the same way: at a company solving the problem of the whole day rather than the first five minutes.
But if you have never felt Sea Island cotton, buy one pair of the Sunspel anyway. There is a category of pleasure in clothing that is not about value at all, and this is one of the few places in a man's wardrobe where you can buy it for the price of a decent dinner Five Briefs Worth the Money.
Questions people ask
Is Sunspel underwear made in England?
Not entirely, and the brand is reasonably clear about it if you read the product pages. Sunspel's Long Eaton factory in Derbyshire, which the company has occupied since 1937, still operates and is where its knitwear and T-shirts are made. The underwear, including the Sea Island cotton briefs, is made in Portugal, from cotton grown in the West Indies and spun in Switzerland. This is a normal European supply chain rather than anything underhand, but "British brand" and "made in Britain" are not the same claim.
Is Hanro Swiss or Austrian?
Both, depending on what you are asking about. Hanro was founded in Liestal, Switzerland in 1884 by Albert Handschin, and Carl Ronus joined in 1895, giving the company the name that was trademarked as Hanro in 1913. Since the Austrian Huber Group took control in the early 1990s, the majority of Hanro's fabric has been knitted in-house in Vorarlberg, Austria, at a facility trading as Arula, with garment sewing done in Portugal. The brand identity is Swiss; the manufacturing is Austrian.
What is mercerised cotton and is it worth paying for?
Mercerisation is a finishing process in which cotton yarn is treated with a caustic solution under tension, which swells the fibre and permanently changes it. The result is a smoother, more lustrous, more dye-receptive and measurably stronger yarn that resists tearing better than untreated cotton. For underwear it is genuinely worth having, because it delivers both the soft hand and the durability, and because unlike a surface finish it cannot wash out. It is central to Hanro's cotton ranges.
What is Sea Island cotton and why is it expensive?
Sea Island cotton is an extra-long staple cotton grown in small quantities in the West Indies, with individual fibres long enough to spin into an unusually fine, smooth and lustrous yarn. Longer fibres mean fewer exposed ends, which means less pilling, more strength for a given fineness and a hand that feels closer to silk than to ordinary cotton. It is expensive because the growing area is tiny and the yields are low. Sunspel has been buying it since around 1900 and named itself after it.
Which lasts longer, Sunspel or Hanro?
Hanro, generally, and the reasons are structural rather than a matter of care. Mercerised cotton is stronger than untreated cotton, Hanro's covered elastic waistbands outlast exposed bands, and its seamed and lined pouches hold their shape. Hanro's Cotton Sporty brief is even rated for a sixty degree machine wash. Sunspel's Sea Island jersey is very fine and very light, which is exactly what makes it feel extraordinary and also what makes it wear through sooner at the seat.