Women now favour comfort over "sexy" when it comes to lingerie shopping

More active lifestyles, healthier eating and an increased emphasis on body confidence has led women to choose comfort over "sexy" when they are shopping for underwear with flesh tones and smooth lines being the most favoured features.

A study of 80 lingerie brands across the UK, US and Europe showed sell-out rates of push-up bras reduced by 50% last year with more comfortable bras seeing a sharp increase.

Lingerie retailer Boux Avenue analysed Google searches to assess the shifting trends in lingerie with comfortable bralettes being searched for more than 50,000 times a month.

Supportive sports bras are also a popular style with 40,000 searches a month while the t-shirt bra has seen a 15% spike in searches year-on-year. Overall comfortable bra searches were up 18% while sexy bra searches were down 2%.

Some 72% of women said they preferred natural flesh tones when buying underwear, which suggests that perhaps the definition of what constitutes "sexy" has shifted to more natural look.

"When it comes to a woman’s choice of lingerie, it no longer is all about looking the part, instead women want to feel good in whatever they choose to wear. The ‘old faithful’ bra has been exiled to the back of many underwear drawers for long enough, it’s time it takes centre stage," said Boux Avenue in a statement.