Serpent & Bow 2019: Communing with The Goddess

I am not a religious person. I have some strains of spirituality, which manifest for me in feeling a connection with women from decades, centuries, and millenia past (one of the most profound experiences of my life was seeing the Venus of Willendorf sculpture in person), but even that mild expression of spirituality feels nebulous, unstructured, and hazy.

Therefore, it's a bit odd to me that I'm feeling such a connection this year with lingerie collections that deliberately draw upon representations of goddesses and other female divinities.

I wonder if it's tied to a new awareness of my own mortality or certain, personal struggles I am having with my dream of becoming a mother, but I find myself searching for and perhaps even feeling a vague sort of comfort in divine beings represented as women.

Serpent & Bow is a designer we've visited previously on TLA. They are the definition of small batch, indie lingerie. Every item is handmade to order on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Collections utilize hand-carved imagery, botanical dyes, and natural fibers to create almost talismanic underwear...lingerie that feels as though it's been imbued with the spirit of the creator.

This label is such a departure from the lingerie I've previously been drawn to, but it also feels more like me than almost anything else right now proving, I suppose, that the things we need from our underwear are always changing.

(All photos from Serpent & Bow. Header photo and last 6 photos modeled by Melanie Ludlow and photographed by Cecilia Senocak.)