Packing: Andrew Christian

Andrew Christian was the first line of underwear I tried with a dedicated pouch/pocket you could put a packer in. I’m not a huge briefs fan, but their trunks were too short for me/often had thick bands around the bottom of the leg, so I never found the trunks to be comfortable. I had two pairs that I wore often - one was a regular “Show It” brief and the other was an “Cool Flex Show It.” The Show It line is their separate pouch line and works the best for packing.

The good: The pouch works very well for holding a packer in place. I preferred to work out in compression short-style underwear with a cup pocket, but I have worked out in the AC’s while packing and never had a problem with things moving around. They hold the packer in an anatomically correct place/position and I felt that I was perfectly passable in this in a locker room. The waistband on the “Cool Flex” version was great (the other waistband wasn’t as good and got pretty loose over time) and the thin fabric on the “Cool Flex” made for a comfortable fit.

The “Show It” Pouch:

The bad: These aren’t the highest quality underwear - they really start to show wear and tear once you’ve had them for a bit. The “Cool Flex” fabric is pretty thin and started to wear through. The regular ones held up better in terms of the fabric retaining its thickness, but it didn’t retain its elasticity and got kind of saggy. That said, I wore these a lot and they lasted as long as something like a Hanes pack would. I have worn these working out, and while they hold everything in place, they don’t handle sweat especially well - much better to go with a proper athletic underwear for exercising. The other downside for me was one of personal tastes - AC aggressively markets to gay men and their website is a bit overwhelming (sometimes it felt more like a soft gay porn website than a clothing site). The designs tend to be very flashy, which I don’t like (I much prefer the simple style of something like Mack Weldon). If you’re a straight guy who likes low-key styles, it can feel a bit uncomfortable to be showing off an AC waistband (especially if you buy their “Trophy Boy” line…).

The verdict: Personally, these aren’t really my style from an aesthetic side, and they aren’t the highest quality construction, but the design is one of the best out there for guys who are packing. Indeed, the fact that I regularly wore these despite the flashy style speaks to what a great design they have. If you prefer a more conservative style, you can find more muted colors/styles on their website if you look for them. The list price on these tends to run around $15-30 which is overpriced for the quality, but they always seem to have plenty of styles on clearance and email lots of discount codes. Don’t pay full price, but do buy these on sale.

#packing #andrewchristian #briefs