Bengaluru, India, December 22, 2024: A surprising blind spot in the global activewear industry has come into focus as Adira, an Indian brand recognized for innovations in women’s innerwear, introduces what it calls a new category in performance clothing: the Sports Panty.
For years, sportswear giants including Nike, Lululemon, and Adidas have invested heavily in high-performance bras, leggings, and tops, yet women’s underwear, worn every day and during every type of workout, has remained largely unchanged. On November 13, Adira launched the HYDRASKIN™ Sports Panty, a product the company says was engineered specifically for athletic movement rather than adapted from everyday underwear.
“For 18 years, my work at Adira has been guided by one principle: When an important solution for women doesn’t exist, we must create it,” said Deepa Vari, Founder of Adira. “Women are more active today than ever before. We run, jump, stretch, lift, cycle, dance, and trek. Yet the garment closest to our skin has barely evolved in decades.”
That disconnect, she says, became impossible to ignore.
The company’s research deepened the mystery. Analysis of Google search data and global marketplace listings showed a stark imbalance. “Sports bra” is a massive search category worldwide, yet “sports panty” barely appears at all and is completely absent as a category on Amazon. According to Vari, this wasn’t because the need didn’t exist.
Women simply had no alternatives and therefore no vocabulary to search for them. As a result, issues like chafing, sweat retention, friction burns, moisture discomfort, and underwear riding up during workouts became normalized, even as other parts of the activewear ecosystem advanced dramatically.
The long delay in addressing this seems rooted in how the industry allocates innovation budgets. While India’s fitness participation has skyrocketed in recent years and women are increasingly visible in gyms, marathons, and recreational sport, intimate wear remained an afterthought.
Vari points out that global brands made huge strides with breathable leggings and engineered sports bras, yet left underwear behind, forcing women to train in garments better suited for sitting at a desk than sprinting or lifting weights.
Adira designed HYDRASKIN™ Sports Panty from the ground up rather than adapting an existing product. Independent laboratory testing supports its performance claims, showing faster sweat absorption and moisture release along with enhanced cooling compared to standard workout fabrics.
The collagen-infused material absorbs water in under a second and improves skin moisturization during activity, while the construction eliminates common friction points. The design uses a single panel to reduce irritation, bonded seamless edges to prevent visibility under leggings, and zero elastic in key areas to avoid trapping sweat.
A natural cotton crotch maintains hygiene and comfort. Vari emphasizes that the product’s technical performance is what defines this as a new category, not a marketing notion.
Early customer feedback reflects that focus on comfort and performance.
“It was soft on the skin. Seamless, so there were no visible panty lines. A good experience for workouts.”
— Pooja C
Adira’s track record suggests the company is accustomed to entering spaces large brands ignore. It patented Period Panties in India and the United States in 2009, introduced puberty essentials for growing teens such as Starter Bras and Camisoles in 2013, launched Morph Maternity wear, and developed the Pristine Life incontinence range. Vari says each of these innovations followed the same pattern: a widespread problem affecting millions of women, yet no meaningful solution from major companies.
To confirm it was first to the market, Adira conducted a global review of brands, patents, product archives, and terminology.
The company found that while performance underwear existed in various forms, no major brand had created a panty engineered explicitly for athletic movement, defined the terminology, or built a category around technical efficacy.
HYDRASKIN™ is available in sizes up to 10XL, a decision meant to counter the size limitations that have long shaped access to activewear.
Vari believes that larger brands will eventually enter the category, and she sees that as inevitable. She argues that the presence of competition would validate the need and help make the Sports Panty as standard as the sports bra. With this launch, Adira positions the Sports Panty as the missing foundation layer that completes the activewear system for women.
HYDRASKIN™Sports Panty is now available at MyAdira.com.
About Adira: Adira is a brand from Yashram Lifestyle Brands Pvt Ltd., founded by Deepa Vari in 2007. Deepa holds patents in India and USA for Period Panties (since 2009) and creates innovative intimate wear including the world’s first Sports Panty, Starter Bras & Camis, Morph Maternity wear, and Pristine Life incontinence products.
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