Sue, Sue and blue - lingerie in the news!

Sue

The underwear designers and manufacturers, Zephyrs, expected to be famous for their ground-breaking (or rather boob-shaping) kidney shaped bra inserts, shaped to increase volume and cleavage in a natural fashion. Instead they are suing their law firm, McDermott, Will & Emery for approximately $6 million! years of design on the part of Zephyrs founder Debra MacKinnon led to a patent application in 2008, but according to the claim, when the actual patent was granted in 2012, serious flaws were found in the claim document, allowing giants like Amazon and Victoria’s Secret to create similar systems without breaking patent law. As a result, Zephyrs has been fighting a rearguard action to protect intellectual property and bring their lawyers to book by claiming damages because they haven’t been able to collect royalties on their design. A ruling isn’t expected before the end of the year.

Sue

Whatever your view of Lingerie Football, I’m sure you assumed that the players were getting well paid for their skills - and for wearing a little less than the average footballer whilst playing! But it seems that’s not necessarily the case - a  former Las Vegas Sin player, Robin Johnson, is suing the Lingerie Football League for which she played. Her claim is that the league, now known as the Legends Football League, failed to pay the necessary  minimum wage and overtime to hundreds of its employees.

Johnson played for the league for two years and says that she and many other employees were classified as independent contractors who weren’t entitled to minimum wage payments and overtime, which she claims is hard to believe, given that players must both play as part of a team and obey team and league rulings, which denies their independent status. The ‘Lingerie League’ began as a half time skit but is now a ten team USA league, a five team Australian one and a four team league in Canada. Minimum should apply to clothing, not pay, says Robin Johnson!

Blue is the new black!

At least for intimate apparel. From regularly kingfisher-haired Nicole Richie’s revelations (she spends around £15,000 on underwear every year) to Bar Refaeli’s most recent photos, revealed as part of Top Model, being filmed in Warsaw, Poland, every shade of blue is turning up in underwear.

Wearing blue lingerie can be complex - it’s a cool colour which can drain the life from a warm complexion and is prone to bring out blue elsewhere, so if you have blue eyes (or hair) it can be a sophisticated look - although it’s not great if you have leg veins you’d rather not draw attention to.

Blue undies aren’t impossible though. Blue works well with peach and white, as seen in the Reve de PeintureAntinea nightie by Lise Charmel, and this is a particularly good choice for warm-toned skins and for blondes and redheads. If you want to conceal leg veins, made more obvious by blue undies, a pair of flirty fishnets like our LegAvenue lace-topped stockings will do the job perfectly, whilst ramping up your sex appeal!

Power Lingerie and lingerie power … our week in underwear!

Looking good over thirty, forty, fifty … and beyond, the secret of dressing for success according to Angela Bassett

If you’re one of of those people who findings lingerie ads intimidating and believes there’s no room for women of different shapes, sizes, colours or ages, the last few years have given a refreshing glimpse into how great women can look, whatever their age, colour or shape.  The latest contestant for this list of cuties is Angela Bassett, fifty-five years gorgeous!

Currently starring in American Horror Story, the stunning Bassett has also just completed a photoshoot for Violet Grey. She’s seen wearing black undies that highlight her superb body and while we can imagine that she has been primped, polished and posed by a team of experts, she also says (can this be true?) that it only tens her ten minutes to get ready to go out and face the cameras!

Her secret, she says, is that she decides what feeling she wishes her appearance to transmit, focusing on such words as flirty, sensual or powerful and then choses an outfit that matches the feeling. It’s a fascinating view into how this truly passionate actress has navigated the years that some of us find particularly troubling, and perhaps there’s a technique there we could use ourselves? Rather than asking ourselves ‘do I look good in this?’ or ‘is this too young for me?’ we could pose the question ‘does this choice support the emotion or mood I’m trying to express’ and whether that’s ‘cuddly’ or ‘dominating’, ‘sweet’ or ‘self-confident’ and then we could choose lingerie that matched the feeling we’d like to project. On that basis, we recommend something from the brand ‘Fearless and Fun’ this week! Isn’t ‘fearless and fun’ what most of us what to project? Of course it is, so we’ve picked out this fabulous skin-tight, wet-look mini dress as our highlighted lingerie of the week. It’s not what you might think of as classic lingerie, which is why we’re focusing on it, because we know that impactful dressing is something that needs to be a conscious choice for empowered women and while you might not choose to wear this dress clubbing (maybe not the first time you put it on, anyway!) owning and wearing something as dramatic and sexy as this projects a sense of a woman who’s in charge of her own destiny, and that’s a great place to start your journey into ‘mood dressing’.

Bra Banks and investment dressing

And while we’re talking about empowering women - get rid of that bra! No, not the one you’re wearing, but the one you never wear… the impulse purchase that turned out to be less comfortable than you thought or the (heaven forbid), gift bra from your lover that just isn’t you …

The average British woman has 16 bras but only wears four or five of them regularly and that means there’s a pile of unworn lingerie in many drawers that could be benefiting women elsewhere. Against Breast Cancer has a campaign that will re-home unwanted bras with women in parts of Africa where bra ownership is expensive. For many women in the developing world, it can require between 10-30 working hours to earn the money to buy a bra, which means they just don’t ever get enough spare cash to make the investment. So why not recycle something you don’t wear - or maybe even get a bra bank for your workplace? Then you can invest in a new bra that really does work for you, knowing that your unwanted underwear is making another woman happy or helping fight breast cancer by funding research into cures.

Sexy fruit, confusing underwear and caring for your scanties - our week in lingerie

In advance of the Qixi Festival in China, which is an event dedicated to fruitfulness and young love, one grocer in Nanjing has discovered a way to make his fruit more attractive. He’s dressing them in sheer panties! It’s a double joke, because the grocer is based in a region of China known for underwear production. The price is as ripe as the peaches, at 60 Euros for nine (admittedly the lingerie clad fruit arrive in a satin lined box) but it’s not winning over many fans - potential buyers seem unimpressed, maybe because they prefer a bargain or maybe because they can’t work out what to do with nine pairs of tiny pants when they've eaten the contents.

If you’d like to look a peach in some sheer undies, here are our top tips for perfect presentation:

1.    Exfoliate! The nether regions are very erogenous but also benefit from good maintenance. Buffing your butt with a sisal glove, or using some sugar scrub will remove any dry skin and improve the circulation

2.    Moisturise. Once your skin is peachy smooth, a good moisturiser keeps it that way. There are many treatments on the market that aim to reduce cellulite or improve appearance, and while the jury is still out on their effectiveness (the action of massaging the product in may be as effective as the product itself) you can’t go wrong with something that smooths and softens the skin and smells great

3.    Sheer or not? Not everybody likes to sheer look - if you don’t, consider wearing a tiny sparkly g-string under your sheer panties. It offers the best of both worlds and is a sexy way of highlighting the semitransparent nature of the sheer garment. Our Roza Genezis Shortybriefs, matched with the Venus G-string by Lola Luna are a perfect pairing for this kind of treatment.

Victoria’s Secret slapped

No, it’s not a spanking story! Lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret has been walloped in the courts by Thomas Pink, bespoke shirt maker of London town. The undie seller started a range of retail outlets called Pink in 2012, and has now been told it must rename them across the UK. It seems that the staff of Thomas Pink have been turning away annoyed customers seeking sexy lingerie whilst furious shirt seekers have berated the staff of Victoria’s Secret for not having well tailored shirting to sell!

Caring for your naughty nighties

Or, for that matter, any other kind of lingerie. How do we look after such precious garments? First, hand wash them, even High Street brassieres should be kept out of the washing machine and even more, away from the tumble dryer. Anything will elastic will last longer if hand washed.

Of course we don’t want stinky undies, so it’s important to undertake the hand washing process properly:

•   fill a bowl with lukewarm water and a little hand washing liquid

•   fasten hooks and eyes or press studs, so that they don’t tear lace or other fragile materials

•   check your garments - if you have sweat marks, lipstick stains (we won’t ask why!) etc, dampen those areas with cold water and rub with a little stain removing product or neat hand wash

•   insert your undies and ensure they are fully under the water - this can take a while if you have padded items

•   leave for 15 minutes to soak

•   swirl around in the water for a couple of minutes - no need to scrub

•   rinse in cold water and lay on a clean towel for half an hour to absorb much of the water, then line dry if your sexy secrets are safe to hang outdoors! If not, leave them on the towel but lay it over a radiator on a low heat.