The Formfit Company was established in 1917 with headquarters in Chicago as a maker of women’s “foundation garments” – mainly corsets and girdles. It was one of the largest, if not the largest manufacturers of such products in the world. At their Chicago headquarters they had a building a block long and eight stories high which housed manufacturing, shipping and sales. Later they also became known for other types of lingerie, particularly bras and briefs.
They also had facilities in nearby Aurora, Illinois.
In the early 1960s, Formfit merged with Rogers lingerie, to make Formfit-Rogers.
Later Formfit became owned by Jockey International. When trying to find Formfit's homepage, one is redirected to jockey.com.
Formfit and Life Women's underwear both were brands manufactured by Jockey, International, Inc. at significantly lower prices to the consumer than the usual Jockey namesake brand underwear sold in major department stores. At one time he Form Fit (or FORMFIT) brand was sold exclusively at Target Department Stores. When Target discontinued their relationship with Jockey, they stopped making this line.
The Life brand was sold at Wal-Mart stores. Life women's underwear cleared at Jockey company owned outlet stores sometime around 2004.
An email to the company yielded a response indicating the women's line was unpopular at Wal-Mart and thus was discontinued.
I wish we could have found more people like you. But the folks at Wal-Mart told us that not enough people purchased our Life Women's Intimates. Consequently, Wal-Mart stopped carrying it. And since Wal-Mart has exclusive distribution rights over Life underwear, we had to stop making it in January 2002. It was a fine product, and Wal-Mart's decision was deeply disappointing to all of us.
Jockey Brand goes on sale once or twice a year at each major department store where the brand is sold. Major retailers include Sears, Mervyn's (California), JC Penney, and others. Jockey sells its products direct as well.
All three brands (Jockey, Life, Formfit) bear the same RN (registered identification number). This means Jockey made Life, Formit, and Jockey underwear.
The Formfit line of underwear is now being sold under the name Elance in Kohls Department Stores.
Jockey still makes Life Underwear Men's Line.