by Marc Delavigne

If you like underwear with daring designs and revealing cuts you should have a look at the huge collection of the French brand LOOKME, recently introduced on this blog. While exploring their novelties for 2017 at the Salon International de la Lingerie and Interfiliere in Paris in January we were happy to receive a test sample of one of their most minimalist thongs, the “New Look String 99-01”. In this article I will share with you my impressions of this item. For most of my reviews I assess the underwear’s comfort during physical activities because that’s where your undies really have to show their qualities. In the present case, however, I will not try to “sell” you the item under review as functional underwear. Of course, it isn’t really impossible to wear it for outdoor sports …

… but after running ten times to the camera and back through the snow, even I realised that this was probably not the intended use case for this piece of garment.

The cozy environment of my living-room felt much more appropriate for stripping down to this almost-nothing in bright magenta.

As you see from the pictures, the anatomically shaped front pouch is much narrower than for most other strings and provides only very limited coverage. Since this style wouldn’t have space for a graphically designed waistband, the brand’s name is embroidered with white yarn on a black fabric label sewn on the top front rim of the garment. This technique has the advantage that the logo will never flake or wash off. The backside is designed in a very narrow thong style.

The fabric (95% cotton, 5% elastane) is body-hugging, soft and pleasant on the skin. The strings (around the hips, the legs, and between the buttocks) are elastic and don’t constrict. The production quality is flawless. I have only one criticism: there are three layers of care instruction, size and composition labels sewn to the fabric on the inner face of the back string. They are not particularly itchy but risk to stick out from behind the back string. Of course, it’s not a big deal (and unavoidable) to cut them off, but why attach them there in the first place? The same information could be printed inside on the fabric.

LOOKME offer their products through various resellers and on their own website. I was not able to find on that site the exact model that I reviewed. However, there is a great choice of many similar ones in many different colours and slightly different fabric compositions. The prices range between 12 and 15 EUR, which I think is a moderate price for some good fun. If you want to really spice up a dull party, watch out for the very interesting “stripper version” of this thong-style string, featuring lateral quick-release buckles!

The sample provided was in size M, which fitted my frame (1.85 m = 6 ft 1 in tall, waist = 78 cm = 31 in) very well. Be careful with the size table on the LOOKME website: the waist measurements in inches (which seem correct) are inaccurately converted to centimetres; from the centimetre indication you could pick a size too small.

I would like to thank LOOKME for kindly providing the sample!