“She started crying in the fitting room with me,” says Chloe.
Looking back, Chloe thinks the shock wasn’t the lingerie itself. It was the fact that the customer had never realised she had a choice. For years, she had bought whatever bra she thought fit. Her size was difficult to find, and lingerie had become something purely practical. Then Chloe brought her a rail of different styles to try on, lace, matching sets, pieces she had never imagined herself wearing. As they worked through the options together, something began to change.
“A few weeks later, she came back and hugged me. This time, she wasn’t just shopping for lingerie. She was ready to browse sex toys, look at bondage accessories, and explore parts of herself she had never felt comfortable talking about before.
“Up until that point, she didn’t feel sexual. She just felt insecure.”
Chloe Wolfford is twenty, and she works in retail at Ann Summers. She has watched versions of this story play out more times than she can count.
Ask Chloe what people are looking for when they buy lingerie, and she doesn’t start by talking about lace or matching sets.
She talks about confidence.
“Obviously, your underwear isn’t gonna get seen all the time, it’s a very intimate part,” she says. “Knowing you have something that looks so pretty, that rarely gets seen, it’s empowering.”
Jody Sill, a psychosexual therapist from the NHS, explains why this happens.
“When we believe that we look good, this can influence our feelings of confidence,” she says. “With lingerie, this can really draw attention to certain parts of the body that you wish to spotlight in a more sexual context.”
And once that internal shift happens, it shows up everywhere.
“When we feel sexy, we are bound to hold ourselves differently than when we are feeling self-conscious,” Sill says. “Feeling sexy and confident can lend itself to more open and empowered body language, such as standing taller, the ability to be more playful, to ask for what you want, and to enhance your sexual experiences.”
For Chloe, that confidence matters because sexuality still comes wrapped in embarrassment, awkwardness, and the fear of asking the wrong question.
“I feel like there’s a lot of stigma still around sexuality,” she says. “Lingerie is a good tool to help people break down some of those barriers, especially when they’re asking for help, because a lot of people can be quite scared to ask for help.”
She has watched this play out with her own customers, over and over.
“I’ve had a lot of repeat customers who have come to me quite nervous and have then come back with a new sense of confidence and sexuality,” she says. “Confidence can be an amazing tool around intimacy.”
Sill has seen the same pattern in therapy. She worked with one woman who felt disconnected from her body after becoming a mother.
“She started wearing lingerie as a way of embracing her femininity and seeing her body in a refreshed light,” she says. “It helped her reconnect with herself as a sexual person.”
Chloe has lived a version of this herself. Before working at Ann Summers, she describes herself as being insecure about her body.
“I realised that was a me problem, and wearing lingerie helped me feel a bit more confident, because I was dressing for myself,” she says. “When you’re wearing something you feel good in, it does so much more for you than it does for any other person.
That shift shows up in her relationships, too.
“Changing into a pretty lingerie set that I feel confident in and showing it to my partner changed their perspective on sex as well as mine,” she says. “It’s almost like a change in character sometimes. It can make it feel more special.”
When you’ve gone to the effort of putting something on that makes you feel good, she says, your partner feels that.
That is where lingerie’s effect becomes more interesting than simply looking good. It is not that lace magically fixes insecurity. It is that feeling good in your body can make you less distracted by it.
“When we feel comfortable in our bodies, we are less likely to be heavily focused on the parts that we do not like as much,” Sill says. “Intimacy can feel more mindful, as you will be more focused on the intimacy itself instead of worrying about what your body looks like.”
And it goes further than confidence in the bedroom. Lingerie, Sill says, can work as a communication tool, a way of saying things that are hard to put into words.
“For many, browsing or purchasing lingerie can be a couple activity which enables both partners to talk about what they like, share fantasies, and create an overall shared intimate experience,” Sill says.
Chloe agrees.
“It can be a way to introduce certain dynamics,” she says. “For example, role play is a really big fantasy for a lot of people, and there’s a lot of lingerie around it that can be quite a good tool to open things up a bit more sexually and open a conversation without having to speak up.”
Lingerie is not necessary in a relationship. It is not a magic fix for insecurity or desire. But for some people, it offers a private way into confidence: a small, physical reminder that sexuality does not have to begin with somebody else’s approval.
“The importance is how it makes you feel,” Chloe says. “Lingerie can be a fantastic tool to help people feel confident and feel more in touch with their sexuality. But it is more about the person wearing the lingerie than the person viewing it.
“Lingerie is meant to fit you,” Chloe says. “Not the other way around.”
