Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Photo Coverage: Model Displays a Creation in Lebanon 2010/09/28

Monday, September 27, 2010

Lingerie can be fun

I have dedicated this site to the fun that is Lingerie. I have always enjoyed the artistry and craftsmanship of exotic lingerie. It reminds me of scene of artisans in a lightly lit room with a halo of smoke surrounding a group of practiced artisans torturing themselves to design a fine chest or a violin. All of the lines have a purpose and a clear meaning to accentuate the motif. Every reason for its creation, being put into place with both style and with practical function. There is a bit of a hidden archival feeling when a well designed undergarment is created. To me, it is a medium that should never be overlooked in the realm of art.

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Chantelle Fall/Winter 2010 Fashion Show

Chantelle’s Fall/Winter 2010 fashion show was earlier this year, but we waited to show you until it was actually close to the appropriate seasons! The Paris-themed show featured some new styles and old favorites. The video even includes some backstage footage! Take a look:

Here are some of our favorite stills from the video:

You can find Chantelle at Figleaves and BareNecessities.

Beautiful Bottoms' international expansion marketing

Friday, 29 October 2010

How to market a brand? FashionUnited contacted Lauren Skerritt, co-owner of Beautiful Bottoms, and got some interesting answers. Beautiful Bottoms embodies femininity, romance and sensuality with their vibrant yet quietly sophisticated collection of intimates. Increasingly women are looking for knickers and bras in softer, more delicate shapes. Designed in pure silk georgette, the enchanting knickers and bras with their flirty frills, silk ties and soft sheer bodies answer an increasing demand for intimates that please the wearer and the viewer. The collection reflects modern romance with a subtle luxury; vibrant prints coupled with light ethereal shapes generate a creative take on the more traditional lingerie essentials.

FashionUnited: How would you describe the roll of marketing in your company?
Lauren Skerritt: Hugely important, as a small company with no budget for advertising we allocate a vast amount of time and effort into marketing. We focus on PR (online and magazine/newspaper) as a marking channel, social media/networking, blogging, WOM, Charity auctions, events, fashion shows both at universities and more prestigious events in London. London fashion week is a great marketing channel for press and public exposure.

FU: What are your expansion plans into new markets the coming year?
LS: We focus heavily on trade shows in increase our distribution channels. We are doing the Paris lingerie show (salon de la lingerie) in January for the European market. We are investing in the New York lingerie show (curve) as a great new market awaits US! Hoping for some key stores in the US and UK next season.

FU: What are your expectations for the coming year?
LS: To increase our stockists by 25% in both the UK, Europe and US. And as a result increase sales through our own website.

FU: What marketing tools do you implement to reach international clients?
LS: Email able invites to trade shows, phone calls to let them show we will be showing at the events. Gifting to key international buyers and press.

FU: What tools do you use to build relationships with buyers both in the UK and abroad?
LS: Main tool is through trade magazines both in the UK and internationally. Email able newsletters are sent out regularly. UK and international press highlights the brand.

FU: How would you define your focus, online vs offline?
LS: For our direct sales the majority of this business is focused online through newsletters and online (bloggers/social networking sites, twitter). We are creating a video which we hope will go viral and drive sales and a general buzz for the brand. We have a offline focus in terms of magazine, newspaper press as well as general awareness events (fashion shows). Sales we do leading up to Christmas as awareness and sales driven things.

FU: What do you need to increase brand awareness in oversees markets?
LS: Agents and overseas press. We hope to work with agents in many countries (we have just started working with one in China and Portugal) to drive sales. Stockists are needed to raise the brand awareness in overseas markets. We hope to grow these through trade shows.

FU: How do you manage culture differences?
LS: We investigate what works in the different markets through research and push the collection with these different angle.

FU: Can you tell us a little more about your latest success story (a milestone)?
LS: A repeat order from Fenwick bond street.

FU: Marketing: Art or Science?
LS: Both!

FU: What kind of marketer are you? Are you an inventor who uses their intuition to accomplish wonderful product innovations and designs? Or someone who successfully combines existing products and services to consumer wants and needs?
LS: We have found a gap in the market, our brand combines affordability with beautifully printing silk georgettes. Currently not found in the market. We believe we have created something different.

Photo Coverage: Chinese lingerie design contest show at China Fashion Week in Beijing

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Thursday, October 28, 2010; Posted: 08:10 AM - by BWW Photo Special

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A model presents a creation during the Chinese lingerie design contest show at China Fashion Week in Beijing October 28, 2010. The Chinese fashion week runs from October 25 to November 1, and includes 40 shows displaying designs from some 50 Chinese labels.

Models present creations during the Chinese lingerie design contest show at China Fashion Week in Beijing October 28, 2010. The Chinese fashion week runs from October 25 to November 1, and includes 40 shows displaying designs from some 50 Chinese labels.

Members of the audience watch as a model presents a creation during the Chinese lingerie design contest show at China Fashion Week in Beijing October 28, 2010. The Chinese fashion week runs from October 25 to November 1, and includes 40 shows displaying designs from some 50 Chinese labels.

Members of the audience watch as a model presents a creation on the catwalk during the Chinese lingerie design contest show at China Fashion Week in Beijing October 28, 2010. The Chinese fashion week runs from October 25 to November 1, and includes 40 shows displaying designs from some 50 Chinese labels.

Crystal Renn Loves Lingerie But Doesn’t Wear Underwear

by Verena von Pfetten | 12:56 pm, October 26th, 2010

On Thursday, Crystal Renn walked a runway at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York wearing a latex bodysuit and nipple pasties for Carine Gilson’s first lingerie show in twenty years. Considering the scene, it should come as no surprise that when New York Magazine’s Jada Yuan chatted with Renn after the show, the conversation hewed to the theme of the evening: underwear.

Renn, for her part, seems sublimely comfortable with nudity and the fact that designers always “want to put latex on [her] for shows,” a fact she attributes to her “dominatrix-type energy.” But when it comes to actual lingerie, Renn likes to keep things really simple.

“I could tell the truth and say that often I’m not wearing bras or underwear. Being someone who doesn’t tend to wear undergarments — and I’m so sorry for anyone who might be offended by my eccentric ways — but when I do wear it, I make sure it’s a special occasion, and I wear it as a special thing, feeling special, so therefore the effect is stronger than ever. As opposed to every day, feeling the effect. Special times, special measures.”

Renn also opened up about her weight, which she says has fluctuated from a size 0 at her smallest, to a size 12-14 at her largest. She has now found a comfortable and happy place being something around a size 8-10.

“Well, I’m so active [now.] In the past, I avoided exercise because it brought back terrible feelings. I wasn’t ready. And I was scared that maybe I was going to be addicted again… I think I probably have a good relationship with the exercise that I do do. I’m taking care. I’m just in a really good place. I do hiking. I do yoga, but nothing crazy, just in my house. It brings me peace.”

There’s been a lot of controversy about the fact that Renn, at her present size, is too small to be considered plus-size. But what we think is most awesome and more telling is that in her current iteration, Renn makes a great case for the diversifying the industry in general, and in every direction. Why should models be categorized as “straight” size or “plus” size? Why not just have models of any size?

Crystal Renn on Her Weight Loss, New Exercise Routine, and Walking for Karl Lagerfeld [NY Mag]

[Image via Jeff Grossman/WENN.]

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Your life - Entertainment

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010

'For Your Eyes Only': Russian spy Anna Chapman strips to lingerie in Maxim photos

By DAVID NOWAK and SIMON SHUSTER - Associated Press Writers

MOSCOW -- Russian spy Anna Chapman was revealed by others in June as a sleeper agent in the United States. Now she's decided to reveal more of herself.

She's stripped down to black lingerie for a photospread in the Russian edition of Maxim, appearing on the cover of the November issue under the caption "For Your Eyes Only." That's the title of a 1981 movie featuring the fictional British spy James Bond. The magazine hits the shelves Friday.

Since Chapman, a red-haired 28-year-old, was deported from the U.S. along with nine other sleeper agents as part of the biggest spy swap since the Cold War, she has said little about her work as a spy, limiting interviews instead to schmaltz.

True to form, she reveals nothing of spycraft in a short interview that accompanies the racy photos in Maxim.

"Charm, like love and friendship, is the same everywhere," she informs the magazine. "Most men can be divided into three categories: the primitive ones who only need sex, the smarter ones who want to be loved, and then the last group, those who not only want to be loved but also need for that love to be the biggest and most beautiful feeling in their lives. It's hardest of all with this last group, but that's my favorite one."

Chapman might be choosing her topics carefully out of fear that, with one misplaced word, she could be toast.

In a country led by a former spy, Vladimir Putin, and where loyalties and connections often trump the laws of the land, a revealing interview is betrayal. -

It could be - at least with respect to one's career - fatal.

As a spy, albeit a failed one, Chapman understands the need for self-censorship better than most. Better a revealing photo than a revealing interview.

She brushed away questions from a reporter when she made an appearance

at the launching of a Russian rocket earlier this month from a cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. And she was a no-show at a hip Moscow nightclub, despite having promised the club's management she'd turn up.

"The most negative feeling I am capable of having toward a man is pity," she tells Maxim. The cover shot shows her in black lingerie, holding a gun aloft as huge diamond earrings shine from behind flowing red locks.

And she is as hazy about her future plans as she is about her past.

Her burning desire is "to open interesting, creative projects, to put my soul into them, to help realize the talents of my team, to make people happy," she says.

For a spy who, along with the others, sang patriotic songs with Putin upon returning to the Motherland, and who received the state's highest honor in an award ceremony at the Kremlin earlier this week, her career options appear plentiful. She was recently unveiled as the face of an obscure Russian bank with the same initials as the country's main spy agency.

Right now, though, she's focusing on cementing her James Bond chic and, for the most part, Russian media are happy to play along.

When Ilya Bezugly, Maxim's editorial director, was asked how he snared Chapman for the interview, he had a ready answer.

"I could tell you," he said, "but then I'd have to kill you."

http://fashionunited.co.uk/

Paolita and the effect of

social media

Thursday, 21 October 2010

What’s the effect of Social Media on a brand? FashionUnited contacted Anna Paola, designer of Paolita, and got some interesting answers. Established in London by the designer Anna Paola, ‘Paolita’, focuses on beachwear. Having spent many summers by the sea,

Anna Paola, like many other women, know that with swimwear it is difficult to encounter a good balance between quality, design and sensitivity towards the female body. Paolita has two collections for SS2011: the Floreana and Voyage collections. Anna Paola and her team discussed and understood from other women what makes them feel comfortable and sexy at the beach, a place where women are at their most exposed. Her aim was to create shapes that complement the figure, so that women can feel confident and beautiful. Anna Paola’s designs always find consideration in the fact that women’s bodies vary in sizes and shapes.

FashionUnited: How would you describe the role of marketing in your company?

Anna Paola: The role of marketing is just as important as design. We sourced the highest quality Spanish and French fabrics, and are making a point to manufacture using the best craftsmen in order to attain the highest quality.

It is essential to know ones marketplace and current and future trends. Many hours of work are dedicated to design and selecting fabrics and the appropriate service providers. But equally, there are many hours dedicated to business and marketing strategy. Therefore, it is essential to have the right people in the right positions to execute a well thought out marketing strategy. My business partner, Joseph Bachman, heads our global business development. An important note to make is that we realise one person cannot do everything, and this is unfortunately where many young designers suffer growing pains.

FU: How would you define your focus, online vs offline?

AP: Our marketing approach includes traditional offline activities and the more modern online channels to market. However, we are initiating more innovative marketing campaigns and programmes that will shift our marketing strategy from one of interruption marketing to more of permission based marketing. The permission based marketing is achieved through online and offline marketing channels. Not to give away too much of our strategy, but we aim to build not only the

Paolita brand but also our partners brands (boutiques that stock Paolita designs).

FU: Do you use social media to promote your brand? What is your objective?

AP: We do use social media to promote the Paolita brand. Our objective is to constantly and consistently communicate compact messages to our partners and the end customer. For example, we include “behind the scenes” videos and pictures to our photo shoots and fashion shows on our facebook page ‘Paolita’ and you can also follow us on twitter as ‘Paolitabeach’. We also invite our partners to exclusive parties and events.

FU: Which social media platform do you use and why?

AP: Facebook Twitter Youtube (videos)

We use Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Facebook is by far the most popular channel to market for our online communication. We also have videos on Youtube, but display these Youtube videos on Facebook. In terms of Twitter, we keep our followers update on day-to-day activities, such as our attendance at trade shows or fashion shows.

FU: What are the costs in % compared to "the traditional media" in terms of time?

AP: We are very conscientious of our time because time is the most valuable thing in life and business. Online marketing activities have the potential to save time and maximise our reach and speed of communication. However, it is essential not to abuse the online marketing channels with meaningless messages and SPAM because this will not only waste time but will harm ones brand and lessen credibility with customers. There are massive opportunities to gain through online marketing with time and money; however, if not done properly, there can be significant opportunity loss.

FU: What are the costs in % compared to "the traditional media" in terms of money?

AP: We believe that it is important to maintain a balance in our marketing approach between traditional media and new media channels such as social networking and our online website. Given that we are taking more of a permission based marketing approach, we tend to focus more on social networking and face-to-face interaction. We still need to gain the attention of partners and the end customer, so traditional media still plays an important role, but then we try to make it more interactive through permission marketing techniques. We find that social networking is very useful for gaining and maintaining partners and end customers attention.

FU: What impact does the use of social media have on sales?

AP: Social networking sites have proven to be a profitable channel to market because we often receive messages from customers asking where to buy Paolita designs. We pass on the details of our stockists for their respective area. As mentioned above, we strive to build not only the Paolita brand, but also our partners’ brands.

FU: What impact does the use of social media have on visibility of your brand?

AP: We have leveraged social media in such a way to empower the Paolita brand. Within the first year, we have taken the Paolita brand global, and continually reinforce brand equity through social networking sites.

FU: Can you tell us a little more about your latest success story (a milestone)?

AP: In terms of measuring the success of marketing, that is taking ones marketing efforts and converting to sales, we have had several interesting wins. For example, Lingerie Buyer had an article about Paolita in their magazine and website. We have received orders that are directly linked to boutiques reading about Paolita in Lingerie Buyer.

We have also received orders from boutiques in Germany and The Netherlands, after they saw our videos on Youtube through Facebook.

The brand ‘Paolita’ does not intend to target a particular age group. It tries instead to evoke a feeling, one of poise, liveliness and individuality, which every woman should have the chance to possess.We are committed to excellent quality that directly meets women’s needs, desires and wants. We will have personal relationships with buyers and the end customers, that is, the people selling and wearing our beachwear. The employees, partners and suppliers that work with us can see our excitement and passion, which creates a creative work environment that, encourages innovative thought and rewards individuals and teams for their ideas.

Victoria's Secret model shows off $2m bra

Thu, 21 Oct 2010

Latest & Hottest | Victoria's Secret

Click photo to enlarge

Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima uat Victoria's Secret Soho shop. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)

Model Adriana Lima has displayed the $US2 million fantasy bra she will wear at this year's Victoria's Secret fashion show.

Lima unveiled the Bombshell fantasy bra at Victoria's Secret Soho shop in New York.

The lingerie show, to be held on Novermber 30, has become a holiday tradition of sorts, with many of the catwalkers outfitted in elaborate, fanciful wings - and very little else - parading in front of elaborate sets.

The fantasy bra has become a signature, too: This one created by jeweller Damiani features diamonds, sapphires and topaz.

Oct 21, 2010

Watch | 'Nichole de Carle' Lingerie Show

UrbanSocialite brought my attention to this fairly new lingerie brand, Nichole de Carle. Here are some images from one of her collection, plus the show that went on.

One thing to note is that the cutout portions of some of the pieces, like the bra above, are not actually showing the skin, but are also fabric. For some reason when I noticed this the sexy bar level went down for me. As a guy at least. This could also be un-attractive if the ladies skin color is noticeably different.

Form, Fashion and Fun

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Photo Coverage: Model Displays a Creation in Lebanon 2010/09/28

Monday, September 27, 2010

Lingerie can be fun

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010

'For Your Eyes Only': Russian spy Anna Chapman strips to lingerie in Maxim photos

Which do you prefer. Underwire or no underwire bras?

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