Sydney Sweeney Launches Lingerie Brand, Syrn—But Not Without Controversy
The Bezos-backed venture has been attracting attention since it was first rumored.
Rumors of a Sydney Sweeney lingerie brand have been swirling for almost a year. The actor officially debuted Syrn on January 27, but the road to launch hasn’t been totally straightforward.
The story actually begins at Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s wedding last summer. Of all the celebrity guests in attendance at the lavish Venice nuptials, Sweeney was among the most surprising. Who knew she was friends with the couple? Well, it was soon reported that the invitation may have been more of a business play, given her involvement in a couple of film projects at Bezos’s Amazon MGM Studios. But that wasn’t all: In July, Puck revealed that Sweeney was working on a lingerie line, backed by Ben Schweri at the private equity company Coatue, and that Bezos and Sánchez had signed on as investors. (According to TMZ, the Bezos family firm, alongside tech founder Michael Dell, reportedly put $1 billion into Coatue’s Innovation Fund, which is funding Sweeney’s venture.)
There weren’t many updates on the project for a while, save for a few teasers posted to her social media. (Plus, Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle campaign dominated the fashion narrative around her last fall.) Then, on January 26, she was in the headlines once again—this time, for a publicity stunt that may not have been fully cleared by legal.
TMZ published screenshots from a video, which Sweeney later posted to her Instagram, that showed the actor climbing up to the Hollywood sign in L.A. to hang bras, presumably from her own line, on it. The caption simply read, “@syrn.”
Here’s the issue: While TMZ says her team got a filming permit from FilmLA, she didn’t get specific clearance from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which owns the famed landmark, to shoot there, per ABC. Steve Nissen, the organization’s president and CEO, released a statement to the publication on the matter.
“The production involving Sydney Sweeney and the Hollywood Sign, as reported by TMZ, was not authorized by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce nor did we have prior knowledge of it,” he said. “The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce did not grant a license or permission of any kind to the production involving Sydney Sweeney as reported by TMZ, nor did anyone seek a license or permission from the Chamber for that production.”
Despite the potential legal implications, Sweeney moved forward with the launch and, on January 27, unveiled Syrn, her direct-to-consumer lingerie brand.
“I wanted to create a place where women can move between all the different versions of who we are,” she said, in a press release. “I love working on cars, I go water skiing, I’ll dress up for the red carpet then go home to snuggle my dogs. I’m not one thing, no woman is.”
Syrn (pronounced like “siren”) is built around four “worlds,” the brand says, which reflect the different ways people want to feel in lingerie: Comfy, Playful, Romantic, and Seductress. It’s launching with the Seductress range—described as “a tribute to the art of the tease”—on January 28. Sizing ranges from 30B to 4DDD for bras, with most products priced under $100, and can only be purchased on syrn.com.
“Lingerie is such a fun way to express yourself,” Sweeney continued, in the press release. “You get to feel feminine, and you get to feel powerful. You get to keep it all for yourself, if you want.”
The other Syrn “worlds” are set to be released in the near future, each photographed by female artists in collaboration with Sweeney. Seductress was shot by Ellen von Unwerth (who herself is in hot water for her involvement in Amazon's Melania Trump documentary), Romantic by Frances O’Sullivan, and Comfy by Jess Wason.
Sweeney joins celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, and Lizzo in betting on the intimates market. Kardashian's Skims, for one, was valued at $5 billion in November, following its latest funding round, and recently rolled out a new brand in collaboration with Nike.
