One of our previous “Best of Lingerie” winners, Tisja Damen first caught our eye with intricate patchwork lingerie that was more akin textile art than intimates. I fell in love with their unique, directional approach, and I’ve been checking in on the brand ever sense. In a way, it’s almost harder when you debut with such a strong perspective. People expect brilliance, and that can be a difficult bar to achieve season after season. Fortunately for the lingerie world, Tisja Damen manages to clear it easily.
I first met one of the founders of Department of Curiosities at the Oxford Conference of Corsetry. Gerry Quinton, under the label Morua Corsetry & Couture, actually designed one of my favorite pieces – a cream overbust corset with golden stars made of fragmented glass. I was honestly delighted when I first heard the news of her new lingerie label. Corsetry is a bit of niche area, inaccessible and intimidating to many. Loungewear on the other hand…well, who doesn’t want some of that?
The visual story of lingerie is everything, and a brand’s lookbook is one of the single most effective ways of transmitting that story. From a lookbook, you can learn if a brand is contemporary or traditional, luxury or inexpensive, French-inspired or American-influenced. A good lookbook conveys a brand’s identity, and it’s no exaggeration to say it can make or break a label.
Ever since I first became interested in the lingerie world, Fleur of England has been on my radar as one of those brands that consistently creates beautiful lingerie. It’s not a brand that I associate with particularly boundary pushing design work, but one that has always created sophisticated and elegant undergarments that I would happily welcome into my own wardrobe.
Every once in awhile, and I do mean very rarely, I run across a collection that I wish I could keep secret. I feel so spellbound, so mesmerized, that trying to commit my sentiments to paper (or Wordpress) seems almost sacrilegious. There’s a power in secrets, in things hidden from sight and known only to a select few. In an era when most brands are clamoring for attention, Between the Sheets has gone in quite the opposite direction, releasing a new collection that’s elusive, mysterious, and utterly sublime.
