Goodbye to the plumber’s crack

A French home-improvement chain is taking aim at one of the building trade’s most familiar wardrobe mishaps: the plumber’s crack.

Leroy Merlin is offering “Merlundies,” boxer shorts with an unusually wide waistband designed to keep the gap between a worker’s lower back and buttocks covered while bending or crouching. Those movements are routine for tradespeople, whose standard workwear typically includes trousers with tool pockets, sturdy shoes and often a cap.

The product has been available in the retailer’s Portuguese branches since 2025 and is now being sold in France. An advertising video showing a customer bracing herself for an unwanted glimpse has gone viral again. The underwear prevents the reveal before it happens.

“This means you are comfortably and dignifiedly dressed at work,” Thomas Grassin, a senior employee at the Leroy Merlin store in Laval in western France, told broadcaster Ici. A member of the retailer’s public relations department said the company had received many inquiries from around the country, although the underwear is not sold online.

The article presents the product as a possible gap in the market, while noting that other practical solutions exist. Workers can choose trousers with a higher waist, wear longer T-shirts, use suspenders or a belt, or opt for overalls.

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This means you are comfortably and dignifiedly dressed at work.