We spoke to Brandon Donaldson, the founder of Zphela a new men’s underwear brand in the making. We were intrigued by the plan to rejuvenate men’s underwear industry. Men and Underwear blog is known for our support to new brands and start ups. Many now well established brands out there started as a dream or an ambitious plan and some of them did quite well contributing to a small revolution in men’s underwear. Will Zphela be one of them? Only time will tell. Read the interview and leave your comments. At the end of the day it is you, the customer, who decides.

First a few words about the brand:
Zphela (pronounced Za-fell-a) is the smooth, slick, sexy, cunning, bold new men’s underwear line. They have been a brand in the making for the past two years. They have done research, reviewing, studying, collecting data, and finally asking the tough questions. In doing so they began to brain storm of ways to fix majority, if not all the problems in the men’s underwear market.
They believe it’s time we make men’s underwear just as important as women’s. Women know and understand your underwear says a lot about you, who you are, how your view yourself, displays your pride and ambition, how it makes you feel like you’re on top of the world, and will put a pep in your step. Zphela is planning to bring this to men while keeping all their production in North America.
Zphela claims isn’t your typical brand that will just copy the current fashion trends; they will set them.

Zphela underwear logo

What can Zphela bring to the men’s underwear industry?

We will be rejuvenating men’s wear; long gone are the days of the same fabrics, colors, styles, cuts, feel, and unfaltering underwear. Tell us what other company has told you they are about bringing you this ultimate sensation from just your underwear; while giving you the best in quality, workmanship, technology, comfort, and the most functional men’s wear you’ll ever experience? I don’t know of any, but we are going to do this without fail. It’s a guarantee! It’s time to make a bold statement, a new statement, and allow classy to meet sexy!

What does Zphela mean?

ZPHELA created its name without a goal for it to really have a meaning, and that’s the honest truth. The name wasn’t meant to be tied to anybody or thing, have a secret meaning like many other names, not for it to be combination of names, and it most certainly we made sure it never had any history of ever existing. We push boundaries and make bold statements; and in doing so we need to be daring, take risks, go above the normality, and know what we stand for in everything we do. In following our guidelines we did just that when we came up with and selected the name of our brand.

Even though we came up with the name without it being tied to anybody or thing, it un-coincidentally can be heard when you say The Fellas. (Fella is defined as a term used to refer to a male). How did we find this out? When flipping through the channels on TV; we stopping on a show called the “Big Bang Theory” at the right time; we heard a key character at that point in time say “The Fellas”, and I heard our name loud and clear. After noticing such a great discovery I then realized our name does have an underlying meaning of what we ZPHELA stand for, even though we didn’t plan for it to happen that way! It just so happen in our boldness we came up with the perfect fit for our brand; ZPHELA!

What will be your fabric choice?

Nylon typically isn’t the first material that pops into your mind when you think of men’s underwear, but it actually has a lot of offer. 100 percent of nylon men’s underwear feels great against your skin, with the texture remaining soft, airy, light, wrinkle proof, and this evenly stretched material makes it extremely durable. Nylon underwear will offer an enticing fashion forward look; making any man sexy yet classy with the way it forms to body, giving good pronunciation on the areas that matter most, and even though this material can be partially see through at times it will never show to much; sparking the imaginations of others.

Nylon undergarments are so comfortable you can wear them every day; with the variety of colors it’s easy to coordinate with your outfit or any style. The flexibility allows this material to move with your body freely and coordinated decreasing chances of bunching, riding up, and uncomfortable staples normal cotton underwear carry. Nylon is sleek, good looking, and traveling has never been easier because this material dries in a snap while never losing it shape. This piece is a great change from the traditional cotton wear and we are sure you’ll love it!

Most brands out there seem to use cotton or cotton mixed fabrics. So why not cotton?

No! No Cotton! Here at Zphela we are going to do things differently! Cotton is used for everything, but we will never use complete cotton due to the cons it brings to the table, the fact that it’s to common, and we believe it’s not the best material to make underwear for men out of, but it’s the most popular.

Why is that? We believe pushing the boundaries and taking the risk; which many don’t want to do is the factor that keeps everyone with cotton, but let’s be honest! No one likes having their underwear stretch, fade, look old when they are new, hold water, get wrinkles, and look unflattering on their body. This piece of clothing is an accent piece, a piece that shows your personality, a piece that defines who you are, how people view you, and shows the sexy side to you. With the truth coming out, what would you rather want?

Nylon which is form fitting, dries quickly, remains soft, airy, comfortable, durable, holds colors well , never loses it shape and fit, looks new when they are new and most of the time when they get old, and gives prefect pronunciation of the right areas!

Where are your garments manufactured?

While maintaining quality, comfort, durability, functionality, and fresh new designs we haven’t departed overseas. Amazing isn’t it? All of our underwear is made right here in North America! The underwear is manufactured within Canada, but will have materials that are made in the U.S.A. The materials will come together where ever we find them, and will be presented to our manufacture to make sure everything is made within North America for the finished product. Enough going overseas to China, Europe, India, Pakistan, and let’s be proud of a brand that is made by North America!

What are the styles of your first collection?

Briefs. We all know the traditional briefs, or better known as Tightie Whities. They can be boring, tight, non-sexy, and most people wouldn’t want to be caught dead in them. Briefs on a whole have a bad name among today’s generation, but we plan on changing that. The traditional styled brief is no more as far as we are concerned. We are taking it to an all new level by changing the design, adding bold colors, sex appeal, comfort, breathing room for the genitals, and making sure it becomes the new in thing again.

Trunks. Say Hello to the shorter boxer brief! Yes that’s right; we have custom measurements for our boxer brief so it’ll never replicate any other brand. This change will help with comfort, riding up, breath ability, and accents any body to bring out your best features. It may be shorter, but you’ll have the same coverage and feel as a traditional boxer brief on the market today. 

Zphela underwear for men, sketches of briefs and boxers
Sketches of the briefs and boxers by Zphela. Supplied by Brandon Donaldson. Copyright @Zphela

In which colours?

Zphela is about being new and bold, so our colors are eye popping making everyone stand at attention. Most people don’t realize that on average your underwear is seen up 50% throughout your life time. Some great examples were your underwear may be seen is: the gym locker room, while doing your laundry, the oh so famous underwear being seen over or through your clothing, and let’s not forget when buying your underwear. The fact of the matter is people do see your underwear, so why not give them something to talk about like a:

Mystical Black
Stunning Blue
Lime Green
Vibrant Orange
Loud Magenta

These are your bold color options at the time of our launch. Many are probably wondering; where’s the white? Our question to you is, is white bold? Does it get in your face and tells you I’m here to stay? I don’t think so!

When are you planning to launch?

ZPHELA needs your help to launch our brand, and we know we won’t last in the industry without your support. We have taken many months to make sure we are giving you the best. In giving you the best it come with a nice manufacturing and production cost. To get the proper funding we will be using a highly recognized site (Kickstarter) to go after the final amount of funding we will need to get our production and manufacturing of our product complete. Kickstarter isn’t a donation platform so you’ll get rewards for helping us launch. Our rewards will be wristbands, underwear, t-shirt, a 32+ page exclusive magazine with pictures that will never be released to the public, and exclusive photo with a personal message and signature from the CEO, V.I.P access to our first photo shoot, and a chance to model on our set. Amazing isn’t it! We didn’t just want to give you underwear, but a once in a life time experience, pieces that are one of a kind, that will never be for sale, and so you’ll be able to show it off to others as proof in helping us launch. The pride you’ll have and the jealousy you may stir up in others will be another treasure to you as well.

To know when we have launched our Kickstarter campaign, you may keep watch on Facebook, Twitter, or send us an email. If you would like to know more about Zphela please never hesitate to contact as:

Email: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/zphela

Website: www.zphela.com