Gugu Intimates: Young Entrepreneur Launches South Africa’s First Skin Tone Underwear For Black Women

Gugu Nkabinde, a former marketing and advertising executive, was presenting a strategy to a client on a sweltering hot day in the Spring of 2015 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and felt self-conscious as she stood in the boardroom full of people.

“I was wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt. It was a bit see-through and I had to wear a black top underneath so my underwear was not visible. I kept wondering if everyone could see through my shirt,” Nkabinde told ESSENCE.

After the presentation, she attended an office party where most of the attendees were women of color. She shared with them how uncomfortable she had been in that see-through shirt, and they all started swapping secrets of how to layer like a pro so you never feel like the whole world can see your underwear.

“As we were talking I thought, ‘Wait! This is broken. Why can’t the underwear actually do what it’s supposed to do?’”

This was the birth of Gugu Intimates, a skin-colored underwear range for women of color, the first of its kind in Africa. While it would be a year’s time until the line was actually created and ready for the market, the seed was planted on that day.

True to her marketing strategy background, Nkabinde began researching and found that the only truly nude underwear for brown-skinned women could only be found overseas. She ordered a pair and it cost her nearly $200 after factoring in customs and duties costs.

“I was like, ‘Underwear is a staple, I can’t be spending this much money on just one pair.’”

It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve in 2016 that Nkabinde got serious about the business. When a friend challenged their squad to come up with business ideas that would benefit the women as individuals, instead of the corporates they worked for, Nkabinde decided to make the underwear her project. Her initial idea was to make 50 pairs, sell them on social media and maybe get a lifetime supply for herself.

But that plan changed drastically as she did more research and traveled to other parts of Africa and discovered that in a continent where the majority of the population is Black, there was not a single underwear brand that catered to this specfic — yet very common– need in the market. The ‘nude underwear’ lines that did exist included options that seemed to be tailormade for White women.

When it came time to think of a name for the new venture, Nkabinde didn’t have to look far.

“[My first name] Gugu, means ‘a treasure, something of desire, something to be adorned,’” she said. “I couldn’t have thought of a better name for the business because this underwear is …

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