Hanky Panky

The centerpiece of that legacy is the 1986 launch of The World’s Most Comfortable Thong®, a product that didn’t just find an audience, but created a movement. Women told friends, mothers, sisters, and daughters, generating one of the most powerful word-of-mouth stories in retail history. Today, a Hanky Panky Signature Lace Thong sells every ten seconds somewhere in the world — more than 46.5 million units and counting — distributed across 2,500 boutiques, better department stores, and e-commerce platforms in over 70 countries. The Wall Street Journal famously dubbed the signature lace fabric “lace butter,” and bestselling author and word-of-mouth marketing expert Emanuel Rosen called Lida and Gale “the Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs of thongs.” Not bad for a company that started with a handmade lingerie set, stitched from a handkerchief and gifted from one friend to another.

What Lida built at Hanky Panky was never simply a lingerie company, it was proof that a values-driven, female-founded business could achieve genuine icon status. Hanky Panky is beloved by generations of women, worn on red carpets by celebrities from Rihanna to Cameron Diaz to Cher, Dua Lipa and Jennifer Aniston, and respected by an industry that watched it grow without ever needing a venture capital check to do it. During her nearly 50-year tenure leading Hanky Panky’s business, Lida remained steadfast in the brand’s values–creating fully American made, high-quality products.

Beyond the brand, Lida has been equally committed to building up the institutions and communities that shaped her. A longtime trustee of Barnard College, she has been honored with both the Barnard College Distinguished Alumna Award and the Teachers College Distinguished Alumni Award, and has established multiple scholarship and endowment funds at both institutions. She has served on the board of the Southern Poverty Law Center and is currently a board member at The Brotherhood-Sister Sol, bringing the same rigor and purpose to civic life that she brought to building one of America’s most beloved brands.

In her forthcoming book, Hanky Panky: An Intimate Story of Passion, Partnership and Purpose, Lida shares the raw, behind-the-scenes story of what it truly takes to build a dream business.

Lida earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Barnard College, and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Teacher’s College at Columbia University. She currently resides in Manhattan’s Upper West Side.