It goes without saying that independent designers face more challenges in the lingerie industry than the brands with massive corporations behind them. Some of these challenges will appear obvious even to people with no interest in lingerie (be that a matter of funding or public visibility). This series aims to peel back the curtains on some of the more hidden sides of the industry: this week I’m looking at why […]
As an intimates designer, I feel like I’ve heard every opinion about how much money we make. There are the parents of design students who wish their children would go into law instead of lingerie so they can actually support themselves. There are the people on Tumblr who talk about how indie designers must be rolling in the cash they make from their allegedly overpriced wares. There are the companies […]
The internet is a wonderful thing. There’s so much information available for free (or at least cheap!) that was impossible to find before. One of the great consequences of this is the growing trend in DIY. There’s a new wave of people trying their hand at making their own clothing with an inevitable foray into lingerie. I truly think any growth of creativity and craftsmanship is a wonderful thing. However, […]
In corsetry, there are certain standards that are widely accepted or even assumed, either tacitly or overtly. Examples of this might include the old “20 bones” minimum, multi-layer coutil construction, the idea of “seasoning,” and vocabulary such as “bespoke.” How did these standards come to be? In a market that is simultaneously niche and diverse, who is the arbiter of such things? And with so many novel corsetry concepts, from […]
When I first started my lingerie brand ‘Karolina Laskowska’ in the Summer of 2012, I was pretty optimistic about the future. The brand had begun with wholesale requests and my own online shop was doing far better than I’d expected. Everything was new and very little seemed more exciting than the prospect of finding more stockists and joining the lingerie world as a proper lingerie brand. Fast forward three years […]
