Nude Barre's Erin Carpenter on forwarding diversity in the intimates category: 'Investors didn’t understand the impact'

Erin Carpenter, Nude Barre founder and CEO, quite literally walked a mile in “pink ballet shoes” and “beige tights,” and felt the pain of finding hosiery in the right shade. It's a struggle that has been experienced before by current customers of Nude Barre, which offers hosiery and underwear in 12 complexion-matching shades.

“I’m sure you see this in the market where you go to stores: You ask for something in nude, and usually they bring you options that are beige. I’m not beige,” said Carpenter, who is a former professional dancer and actress, on the most recent episode of the Glossy Podcast. “What I would have to do, and many other artists would have to do, is dye their tights and undergarments to match their skin on a weekly basis to be in uniform.”

People of color and white dancers alike have long complained about the lack of hosiery options and the fact that most are “[a] strange shade of beige,” said Carpenter. That led her to start Nude Barre. 

The demand for diversity in the industry has not yet died down. “There was a petition out about a year ago for the bigger brands like Danskin to make more pointe shoes and ballet shoes in different skin tones,” said Carpenter. “Thousands of people signed this, including dancers, so there’s been a big push for this from consumers,” she said. Carpenter specifically honed in on the intimates category, with a focus on items like bras and stockings. 

Nude Barre was not exempt from the shift in consumer desires, as a result of the pandemic. “Our customer is at home, and she wants comfortable underwear,” said Carpenter. “So we wanted to give her options other than just our seamless thong.” In turn, the brand launched a bikini panty, a girl short (a female-empowering twist on the classic “boy short”) and face masks. 

While Nude Barre is carried in retail and dance stores, most of its sales are direct-to-consumer. “We really love [that], because we get to control the narrative of how we want to talk to our customers,” said Carpenter. “We get to have those intimate and deeper conversations around standing up against colorism and fighting against it in this category and in this industry.”

Carpenter’s passion to bring diversity to the dance apparel industry is exemplified by her own financial investment into the company. “One of our challenges was that, when we would sell out of inventory, we’d have to scrape up enough money to fulfill that,” said Carpenter, who initially launched Nude Barre with $3,000 of her savings. 

Over a decade later, Nude Barre has accumulated stable investors. However, acquiring financial support didn’t come without roadblocks, as she approached “a lot of people that didn’t understand the problem that I was solving,” said Carpenter. “They didn’t quite understand the impact and the importance of changing this narrative of beige being the standard of beauty and why that matters.” 

Eventually, this problem was solved when Serena Williams, who started off as a customer in 2018, became an investor of Nude Barre in 2019. "It helped get other investors to believe in what we were doing and to validate the business,” said Carpenter. 

With the rise of intimates brands like Kim Kardashian-owned Skims, and the push for inclusivity and diversity in the intimates and lingerie space, Carpenter asserts it is a multi-billion-dollar industry. “Growth for the company definitely means more categories,” such as bodysuits, she said. But when looking for more partners, Carpenter ensures that Nude Barre will remain committed to pushing back against investors who may be “excluding certain pieces of the equation” in their focus, in terms of both sizing and skin-tone inclusivity.