Men’s Underwear Gets a Mesh Makeover

It was 2006, Trent Kitsch was salmon fishing in Alaska, and he had a problem. “My package was stuck to my legs for hours,” he says. “The whole trip I kept thinking, I have to reinvent men’s underwear. There has to be a better way.” Kitsch, who at the time was 26 and in business school at the University of Western Ontario, hired a local fashion student to help create a design that would prevent stickage. Companies such as 2(X)ist had installed pouches for added room—and a more pronounced presentation—but Kitsch didn’t think they solved the Alaska dilemma.

After 14 prototypes, he settled on perpendicular mesh panels inside a pouch that he incorporated into a brief and a boxer brief; the panels envelop a man’s privates and provide a protective barrier against the inner thighs. Kitsch took out a $20,000 loan and poured all of it into his new company, Saxx. (He’s nothing if not subtle.) By 2009, the shorts were in Sports Shack, a major Canadian retailer. In 2010 he sold Saxx to No Limits Group, in Vancouver, which owns several other niche-apparel makers.