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Food

China's Peach Panties Creator Thinks Most Fruit Are Sexy Butts

Nanjing, China-based company Fruithunters can’t keep up with demand for their thong-bearing fruit items. We spoke to the company's boss, Yao Xiao Yang, about the literary inspirations behind his vitamin-rich, panty-clad fruity, juicy butts.
Photo courtesy of Fruithunters

Plump, curvy peaches are ripe in the Western world, but in China, they're fashionably getting covered up just below the crack.

Two days ago, Chinese celebrated Valentines Day all around the country, a holiday where a simple offering of supermarket chocolates and flowers is not enough. Instead, China has been going crazy for boxes of peaches that arrive wearing specially-designed lingerie, making the aesthetically sensual fruit resemble luscious, round asses more than ever. A box of nine peaches wearing sexy lingerie costs a hefty 398 Yuan ($65) from Taobao—in essence—China's version of eBay.

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Fruithunters, a company based in the city of Nanjing in east China, brought out the boxes in the run-up to Chinese Valentine's Day on August 2. They've been working non-stop as lovebirds all over the country snap them up as gifts for their other halves and—somewhat worryingly—for their parents. I spoke to Yao Xiao Yang, founder of Fruithunters, who explained the inspiration behind his fruity products and why, despite the hefty price, they're struggling to keep up with demand.

What inspired you to create underpants for peaches? Yao Xiao Yang: I was inspired by literary works. What we understand about fruit is too simple; fruits are wonderful presents given to us by nature. Fruit being sexy is widely accepted in world literature. Names of many fruits are self-evident, such as Sodom apple and Venus nipple peach. On an ancient Egyptian script pomegranate meant breasts, a French poet compared women's butts to melons under the sunshine and James Joyce made similar comparisons in Ulysses.

It helps that peaches tend to look like backsides… Pears, peaches, and apricots all look like sexy butts, but many resemble sexy human parts. People in the east have not been direct and open about fruits' sexy shapes until now, but people in the west are more straightforward. By putting underpants on peaches, we are presenting the undecorated beauty of fruits, telling people that fruit is sexy and that they are gifts endowed upon us by God. That's how we were inspired to make these.

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How have they been selling? Before Chinese Valentine's Day earlier this month, sales reached peak volume. We saw our sales climbing up every day, mainly because of people talking about the peaches online. We had to raise the price a bit but still we could not meet the high demand from our customers. We are still in the process of having more underpants produced and more peaches delivered. During the three days around Chinese Valentine's Day none of us slept or got any rest. We were processing online orders all the time.

Who is your average customer? Most are young people, but primarily girls. We also get a lot of daughters buying these as gifts for their parents to wish them a happy Valentine's Day.

I heard some retailers have been copying your idea? Yes, there are many of them, but most are online shops. Even if they copy our ideas, their sales volume will stay low because the time for ripening peaches has passed. They might be able to find small workshops to help them with their underpants but they are not able to design a good box like ours.

So you're not going to sue? If large companies copy my ideas, I will take legal action. But for small businesses I don't think it is necessary—if others copy us, it means we are successful. We will continue to innovate and come up with creative ideas. We have a couple of plans ready for some other fruit ideas.

You've had some backlash from people complaining about the moral message of placing skimpy underwear on fruit items. What's your response? There are different interpretations about our product online and most are inaccurate. We didn't clearly explain our original concept or how we were inspired. Many people say that we do not have moral standards, but this means that they don't understand fruit. If us rolling out the series means we don't have moral standards, then what about [showgirls at] auto shows and bikini shows? We are simply the first to use our creative idea on fruits. We strive for the combination of good taste with beauty.

Thanks for talking to me.

Author's Note: Sadly, as peach season slips away from us, Fruithunters will wind down distribution of panty peaches. But don't worry, Yao told us that he's working on his next fruit product, and although he wouldn't give us any hints about what it would be, he expects to reveal it in around a month's time. We're offering evens on bananas being involved.