Dive Brief:

• As DTC brands look to expand outside of their starter categories, lingerie company ThirdLove has launched loungewear, a company spokesperson confirmed to Retail Dive.

• Lounge by ThirdLove officially debuted Wednesday and includes hats, camis, woven shirts and button-downs, and French terry shorts and joggers.

• The items range from $15 for hats to $65 for joggers and constitute its first major expansion from its core underwear and bras assortment. 

Dive Insight:

When it comes to launching into tangential categories, ThirdLove is in good company in the DTC space. In October, Allbirds debuted its first apparel collection after staying rooted in footwear and socks for its first few years of business. This January, sock brand Bombas moved into the underwear category and Thinx expanded into activewear.

ThirdLove's expansion into loungewear is natural in many ways, as sleepwear, swimwear and activewear are frequent adjacencies to intimate brands both large and small. Victoria's Secret offers sport and loungewear categories through both its namesake and Pink brands, and recently announced it would again be offering swimwear in stores. American Eagle's Aerie, which already offers loungewear and swimwear in addition to its bras and underwear, made a formal expansion into activewear over the summer. 

In the DTC space, brands have made similar moves as lingerie upstarts look to expand their share. Period underwear brand Knix expanded into the swim category in May and into shapewear more recently. And both Lively and Adore Me offer sleep and lounge, active, and swim categories. ThirdLove is one of the DTC brands that have cropped up in the intimates space to challenge the incumbents with promises for a different kind of shopping experience. It is also one of the brands that have come under fire for not fully living up to that expectation.

Although ThirdLove has had a few items outside of its core before, including a cashmere top and bottoms set in December, this move turns ThirdLove's dabbling with loungewear into a formal brand expansion. The debut of loungewear also comes at a particularly convenient time, as consumers continue to work — and do everything else — from home.

About 31% of total U.S. spending on apparel this holiday season was projected to be spent on comfort clothing items like sweatshirts, sweatpants, active bottoms and sleepwear, according to a study by the NPD Group back in October. Those shifts in consumer spending have been a boon for athletic brands, along with others that cater to those trends, and caused some companies to launch athleisure-focused collections and others to see impressive growth from well-positioned launches.