Lingerie & underwear.

sass & bide have built a brand out of an aesthetic that has no other name, other than to say it’s – well – sass & bide. Part of that aesthetic is a certain toughness, an insouciance; qualities you’d expect them to extend into new sub-lines of the brand, like their newly released lingerie collection. And for the most part that’s exactly what they do.…

The slogan attached to Agent Provocateur’s Classics range is “sexy never takes a day off”. If the word ‘classics’ makes you think plain black and minimal, think again – it’s more defined by the iconic pieces that recur in the Agent Provocateur repertoire, not by whether or not a bra is appropriate for under a t-shirt (pointy leather nipple pasties worn with a rhinestone-studded cupless…

Lingerie – as presented by campaigns and photoshoots – is often so synonymous with sex that we forget it’s also the all-important foundation of an outfit. We may love our cotton undies for day time and strappy bondage getup after hours, but that’s not to say the space in between isn’t equally important. And if there’s a brand that has the sexy-yet-practical space well and…

Like many brands on the scantily-clad lingerie playing field, Ell & Cee create beautiful bras and briefs and bodysuits… Like the silk and French lace ‘Marianne’ set with its daringly low-cut cup and revealing strappy cut-away bottom, or the beautiful ‘Iris’ made from sapphire coloured lace with pitch black trim. But what Ell & Cee also do is offer loungewear that really does feel like…

In the battle to be the sultry, luxury lingerie brand that gets the most attention (and sales) Agent Provocateur have a few advantages: time (they’ve been going nearly 20 years) and budget. The latter allows casting of the kind of names that get press – like Kylie Minogue, Kate Moss, or – in this case – Penelope Cruz’s little sister Monica Cruz. The campaign is…

Lace-cup bras, silk camisoles, and cut-away knickers that have a surprise addition of showgirl sparkle banded across the back. Oriental fashion may have had a runway moment this year, but there’s little in Les Jupons de Tess’ autumn / winter 2012 lingerie collection that feels particularly inspired by the East. But underwear is, at its core definition, the foundation of an outfit and thus malleable…

Lascivious’ lingerie pieces don’t just look good; they’re fire that fuels the erotic imagination. Cheeky cutaways expose body parts in reverse, and the clean, modern design means fabrics hug the skin in the most flirtatious of ways. For fall 2012 the brand builds upon the styles which, since its founding in 2004, have become modern classics. ‘Isla’ reworks one of Lascivious’ classic styles with the…

Aubade – n. a morning love song. One of Aubade’s claims to fame is that they started marketing lingerie as an item of pleasure, at a time when underwear was seen as functional. That was the 1960s, though Aubade’s history goes back much further than that, and since then the idea of lingerie for pleasure’s sake has become so ingrained we wouldn’t even question it.…

Victoria’s Secret catalogues have changed over time. Changed, a lot. In fact they went from soft and erotic-looking in the 1970s to a modern day production-line of unrealistic perfection. If we were to get scientific about it and lay out the last 10 catalogues in front of you, unlabelled, odds are you wouldn’t be able to distinguish one from another. But when you have a…

“East and West, silk and lace… The grace of a geisha and the Italian sense of elegance.” Thus begins the description for La Perla’s fall 2012 lingerie collection, titled the Oriental Suite. It’s a collection that takes the iconic imagery of the East – “obi belts, kimonos, lacquered screen patterns, fans” – and reconstructs them as the basis for garments that adorn the body with…