The Jockey brand, on the other hand, is showing no such signs of disintegration as it celebrates its 75th anniversary this year as New Zealand's most popular brand of men's underwear. In recent surveys of New Zealand men, 90% were able to name Jockey as a men's underwear label.
The brand has become synonymous with New Zealand men and the sporting heroes who have endorsed it but Jockey is in fact an American brand sold in 120 countries. The head office is in Wisconsin in the US and in New Zealand it is owned by Pacific Brands.
None of the product is made in New Zealand, though most of the Jockeys worn here are designed here - to suit New Zealand men.
Among those catering for local tastes is Jes Vilsbaek, of Christchurch, who has designed for Jockey for 35 years.
Jockey New Zealand design manager Michelle Adams says it is the quality of the product, the innovation and the long heritage that has made Jockey such a popular brand in New Zealand.
Add to that a string of celebrities who have lent their names to the brand, including canoeists Paul MacDonald and Ian Ferguson, rugby players Alan Whetton, Zinzan Brooke and Marc Ellis, rugby league player Mathew Ridge and cricket stars Danny Morrison and Chris Cairns.
Most recently All Black Daniel Carter set hearts aflutter when he signed on as the international face of Jockey.
The brand had its humble beginnings in the 1930s. In mid-1934 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Arthur Kneibler received a postcard from a friend, who was visiting the French Riviera, showing a man in a bikini-style swimsuit.
Kneibler had been trying to design an innovative piece of underwear providing the support for men lacking in the long johns worn by many at the time.
The postcard proved to be the inspiration for one of the century's most innovative pieces of clothing, the Jockey brief. The brief was able to provide support for men previously only available from the nastily titled "jock strap".
The brief was named Jock-ey as a way of describing its supportive function.
In 1935 another underwear innovation followed - the Y-front. The style was designed to improve the support of the original Jockey brief but provide a "fly" opening.
The Jockey brand was brought to New Zealand in 1940 by Pacific Brands' predecessor, Lane Walker Rudkin, after Mr Rudkin imported the country's first fabric knitting machine. New Zealand was the fourth country to have Jockey licensee.
In 1947 the Jockey brand was stitched into the waistband for the first time. Since then the brand has changed dramatically to include women's (introduced in 1982), children's and sock ranges.
Last year a rapid dry seamless range was produced, and in the 12 months prior to that Jockey began to use modal, a fabric made from the wood pulp of beech trees. It has also used renewable bamboo in its products as it searches for environmental sustainability.
This year, with a nod to the 75th anniversary, Jockey designers have produced a product harking back to the original Y-front, but using modern materials and colours.
