Fleur Du Mal is the brainchild of ex-Kiki De Montparnasse designer, Jennifer Zuccarini. The lifestyle brand offers a range of lingerie, loungewear, corsetry, swimwear, clothing and accessories. Launched in 2012, the brand now has an impressive range of stockists (including Net-A-Porter, Saks & Selfridges) and intends to open a physical store this year, presumably in the USA.
The pearl thong is a notorious piece of lingerie. Designed primarily for stimulation, rather than comfort or style, it seemingly represents the more sex-focused side of the lingerie industry. People (always men, in my experience) would call the lingerie store I used to work at asking if we carried pearl thongs. They’re mostly marketed as gifts, rather than something a lingerie-wearer would purchase for themselves. In my opinion, it’s the epitome of the male gaze in lingerie: overtly sexual marketing and designed entirely for sexual purposes – without the wearer’s comfort in mind.
Last year, I skipped doing the Valentine’s Day Shopping Guides. Between moving to California, traveling to the Salon International de la Lingerie in Paris, and then attending Curve in New York, I just felt too overwhelmed. But I realized, right around the time I usually would have been writing the guides, that I missed doing them.
I had the chance to preview Fantasy’s upcoming collections at this year’s International Lingerie Show, and immediately fell in love with the ensemble featured. There’s this idea that budget-friendly lingerie brands can only do the super-skimpy, super-sexy things, and while that’s fine, variety is good too. I love this teddy and skirt pairing because it’s soft and romantic and comes in a shade you rarely see in lingerie…a kind of dusty, heathery purple. If teddies aren’t your thing, there’s also a longline bra and panty option (though I’m still a strong advocate for buying that tulle skirt).
Every career is subject to stereotypes, both good and bad. Working as a lingerie designer, retailer and writer, I’ve heard my fair share of silly clichés. From the start, my career path has brought with it a bunch of myths that I’m constantly defending with the hope of changing people’s ideas of what being a lingerie designer really means. While lingerie is not as risqué a topic as it once […]
