From stylish activewear geared toward vaginal sweating to sleek tanks designed to absorb leaking breast milk, femtech is disrupting the fashion industry by asking the simple question, “How can we put women’s health at the forefront of fashionable garment and accessory design?”

Femtech fashion, at its core, is the art of asking garments to do more for women’s unique health needs – it’s about blending together the desire to both look good and feel good in pieces that are creating solutions for age-old health issues for women.

While women’s unique health needs have been happening for a millennium, it’s in recent times that we’re seeing fashionable solutions designed to help women feel more comfortable and confident. And right now, we’re in a revolutionary era where women’s health and wellness are reshaping garment design.

The menstruation category is a great example of how femtech fashion is transforming how we think about, dress and live with these unique health issues.

Periods have been happening, well, since, forever, but it’s only pretty recently are we beginning to see fashionable solutions beyond a cloth rag.

From gorgeous period-proof bikinis to leakproof tennis skorts that check the box for the tennis outfit trend, femtech fashion shifts our perspective on what clothing and fashion can do for periods and women’s health.

Not to mention, leaking breast milk is also getting a much-needed upgrade in the fashion department.

With DIY horror stories from the not-so-distant-past about taping tissues to breasts to help absorb breast milk leaks, chic leakproof tanks are breaking into the game and breaking the stigmas that people with leaky boobs must suffer in silence with no comfortable, stylish solutions.

Leigh launched her own breast leak leisurewear line after struggling to find a solution on the market

And vaginal sweating? Not only are we finally talking about it, now there’s a whole line of activewear designed to help absorb vaginal sweat that includes a pair of sculpting shorts. Yes, sculpting shorts that absorb vaginal sweat.

So, what’s led to this eruption in femtech fashion?

For one, more women are being educated across the globe. Literacy rates amongst adult females have increased from just 59 per cent in 1976 to a literacy rate of 83 per cent for women in 2020.

By increasing the number of women being educated around the world, more female-led innovations and female-led companies are able to emerge within femtech fashion.

Another key factor helping to fan the flames of femtech fashion comes in the form of more people sharing their own personal stories of dealing with their unique women’s health issues.

Mitchella Gilbert developed her own “gynaecologist-approved” sportswear brand to help women stay active

We read on social media, message boards, blogs – you name it – the universal struggles and stories behind breastfeeding, postpartum incontinency, endometriosis and more. By sharing these stories, a more open dialogue has been created in the world.

That open dialogue leads to new questions being asked about issues many women have long felt silenced about. With these larger conversations come more empowerment to finally do something about it.

Gone are the days where people should feel ashamed about their unique women’s health needs, finding ways to hide and minimise their once-taboo health issues in order to make the society around them more comfortable.

Femtech fashion is changing the way we talk, think and feel about women’s bodies.

So, with all of this invention, what’s next for femtech fashion?

Well, don’t be surprised when femtech fashion becomes as commonplace in wardrobes as the little black dress. An array of innovation awaits.

Could there one day be a headband adorned with precious jewels that’s designed to detect strokes in women? Or how about a couture jumpsuit designed to relieve menstrual bloating and cramping?

There’s a world of new thinking just waiting to be sparked.

And with such brilliant innovation, femtech fashion will continue to have the world asking, “Why didn’t this exist before?”

Leigh Coggiola-Belza is the founder and CEO of breast leak leisurewear brand Leaxy.