Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
Pure Collection Ltd.
Net-a-porter UK

Friday 11 January 2008

Lingerie and burlesque


The Guardian explains the rise in sales of expensive lingerie thus:

Before then, the only acceptable way for a normal woman to blow a week's wages on underwear was to buy a pretty but practical and sturdy set from sensible bra supplier to the Queen, Rigby and Peller. The rise and rise of underwear can also be attributed to the burlesque boom: "Before burlesque exploded a few years ago, lingerie was typically seen as either functional, trashy, or lacy: you could either be the virgin, the whore, or the grandma," says Shell. "With burlesque, there was suddenly a new, confident look that was sexy yet coquettish, vintage yet modern ... I think it gave lingerie a cooler, more glamorous image."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Linda - I find the juxtaposition of these two photographs to be very interesting: The first one is of the contemporary "pin-up" Dita Von Teese (and her amazing corsetry - I don't even want to contemplate the size of her waist) and the much earlier picture of Marilyn Monroe - because of what they convey. Here we have Marilyn in what is plainly a dress which has been unzipped at the side, so we get the vision there and I think she's attempting, sort of successfully, to hold up the top of her dress with the biceps of her arms clinched close to her ribs. And there, we have Dita, who is showing about the same amount of skin, but everything is zipped, tucked, clipped, and hooked shut and she has this very very almost defiant "And you think you are going to get into any of this?" look. Fascinating.

Anonymous said...

This is highly asmusing for someone like me who is a full time working Mom in the upper echelons of corporate America! More power to Dita though - she'll lose that waist for sure if she ever has a baby. As Janis Joplin reminds us "Get It While You Can"

Anonymous said...

how many ribs did rita have removed once again so as to fit into those corsets...? this is sick, when cher had that operation everybody was disgusted. Look, now it's "normal"!