Tuxedo-inspired lingerie by Chantal Thomass.

Chantal Thomass is the true queen of lingerie. She makes Agent Provocateur look like Hanes. There’s not a single piece in her collection that isn’t true fantasy, there is no filler, boring stuff, just beautiful, luxury lingerie. Each piece has a story, unbelievably intricate details, beautiful finishes, and a unique design, Her boutique on Faubourg Saint Honore is fantastic, a lingerie lover’s dream. It is not like going into La Perla, which is full of beautiful lingerie, but sells bread and butter items in basic lace, t-shirt bras, etc… At Chantal Thomass, every single piece stands out.

Gorgeous.

The basics aren't basic at all.

The detail on this set is amazing!

And don’t even get me started on their hoisery…

But of course there is a downside to Chantal Thomass, like most good french things, it is kept a secret, and very difficult to get ahold of (and like most French brand’s websites, hers too is difficult to navigate and hard to figure out.) Described as “for lovers of luxury lingerie”, the brand is available in very few places in Canada. Here is their store locator, don’t even bother if you are in Canada and don’t live in Quebec.

Did I mention they do gorgeous swimwear too?

Today’s post is a sister post with a lingerie post on Nancy Girl. There is a little story about how I got in and out of my lingerie company, and both writer’s favourite panty brands. Check it out!

For all my Canadian readers, great news, Holt Renfrew has begun carrying Marlies Dekkers this season. This dutch lingerie brand is AMAZING. I will definteily do some coverage once the collection is in store.

All images courtesy of Chantal Thomass.

I love a great retro swimsuit, they are perfect for summer social events, like pool parties or hanging out on a boat, because they offer a bit more coverage while you are “socializing.” But they aren’t great for tanning… which is why I think you only need one great retro swimsuit (while you can own at least 20 great Brazilian style bikinis!)

These Scout Boutique suits are very cute, and I’d love one to wear this summer. But I won’t go one about this for too long, since they are only available in the store in Vancouver, and that doesn’t help the 90% of my readers that don’t live in or around Vancouver.

These images also remind me of when I did a lingerie photoshoot with a burlesque model or dancer, rather than a typical lingerie model. There is such a difference, the burlesque girl is SO much better at cute, cheeky poses than a normal model, and the one we used didn’t need any instruction at all. The perfect lingerie poses came naturally to her. Her name was Delilah, she now lives in San Francisco (and she is Canadian!)

If anyone knows some other great retro bikini brands, let us know!

The Damaris bow back knicker.

Damaris is a lingerie brand that was very popular around 6-7 years ago, at the same time that I was running my luxury lingerie brand. Damaris was known for the back lace-up or bow-back panty, which pretty much made her famous. Her line was expensive, very expensive, about $400 for a panty and around the same for a bra. This was a total rip off at the time because her panties were very “homeade,”, and her bras were even more homemade. (I can wear a pair of “crafty” looking panties, but bras MUST be made properly constructed. Especially when they are $400.)

Another take on the back lace up panty, by Damaris.

Despite the incredible price points and poor quality, Damaris was the “queen” of the young lingerie brands at the time, and she was very smart to start a diffusion line, entitled Mimi Holliday, early in her career. Mimi Holliday resulted in a lot of sales and great distribution in all the major lingerie stores, while the Damaris signature brand kept making $400 panties which didn’t earn much money, but maintained the exclusivity of the brand.

I haven’t heard much about the brand in the past few years, but it is evidently still afloat, and I am guessing making enough money to keep her and her small staff in business. Damaris has just released a promotional video, called Chore, by Justin Anderson. I was very curious, as her lingerie does look great, and the idea of a woman doing chores in sexy underwear is a concept that can be done beautifully.

I love the sound in this video, and the music (but if you are at work and don’t want to listen to it with the volume on, you can still get the gist in silence.) I love the cinematography, the fact that you never see her face, and how the mundane act of doing chores gets transformed by wearing beautiful lingerie whilst cleaning. But I feel like the video lacks effortlessness and it would be so much more interesting had the scenarios been more real. I personally don’t do splits while I am ironing, vacuum my leg, or hide my head under the carpet, and I wish the actress in this video had just stuck to real life chores. Also, I felt there were a few too many gratuitous ass shots, and the ending, which was a close up of a naked bum, felt irrelevant. Yes, I know this is “art,”, but it was too contrived for my liking.

Photo of his wife, June. By Helmut Newton.

The video reminded me of this photo by Helmut Newton, of his wife cleaning the fireplace. Some of you may think this is chauvinistic, because she is doing her “chores” naked, but I can assure you that Helmut Newton’s nudes are nothing of the sort, in fact, they empower women. This photo came from his book Pola Woman, which was of the polaroids he had taken throughout his career. Aside from the fact that I am obsessed with all of Helmut Newton’s work, there is something memorable, touching, and personal about this image, and it has stuck in my mind for years.

What do you think of the Damaris video?

State of Undress lingerie. Photo by Owen Dakin.

I was sitting outside my work yesterday trying to take in as much sun as possible before I began my lecture. I’ve become obsessed with the sun, not necessarily being suntanned, but the wonderful feeling on sun on my skin. I didn’t use to be like this, I used to be very anti-sun and pale. I began to think about when I switched over from being a sun-avoider to sun-worshipper. It took me a while to remember when and why I had converted, and then it dawned on me… I began to tan after having to wear a bikini in front of 750,000 people.

This is a great story about anyone who has thought about starting their own business…and wanting to stay “behind the scenes.” It is very tough to do…

State of Undress nightwear. Photo by Vanessa Ellis.

I used to have a luxury lingerie company, State of Undress (which is a long story for another day,) that was based out of London and founded with a fellow Canadian, Emma. We were fortunate enough to have a fantastic PR agency who, at the time, was generating a huge amount of media exposure for us, including Vogue and Sunday Times Style. It was 2006, and we had just launched a very small swimwear collection, thanks to a generous sponsorship, and our PR had secured an amazing story in one of London’s best magazines…but there was a catch.

ES Magazine is a style magazine that comes free with the Evening Standard newspaper in London. 750,000 Londoners read it every Friday, so it was great that they wanted to feature us in a story about new swimwear designers. The problem was, the feature included a photoshoot of the designers WEARING their swimwear designs. Immediately I said NO. I’ve seen a Victoria’s Secret catalogue, and I know I am no where near being fit enough to pose in a swimsuit for any publication. But Emma was not letting me get out of this. “If you don’t do it, I will” she said. That’s when I knew I was screwed.

ES Magazine cover, the issue of our feature.

Emma and I were both far from being model size, but we could have squeezed ourselves into one of the samples. The difference was, I was much smaller in the bust department, which meant squeezing my size 8 body into a size 4 swimsuit would have looked slightly less… “stuffed” than Emma, given that I wouldn’t have been overflowing out of the bikini top (only the bikini bottoms…)

I had no choice. One of us was going to be in that magazine, and Emma and I both knew I was the better option. The worst part was that I didn’t have months, or weeks to prepare for the photoshoot. I had days. Four, to be exact.

I called my friend Oonagh, one of the only people I knew who went to a gym, (this was London, where a workout consists of walking to the pub, instead of taking a taxi.) “If I join a gym and go every day for the next four days, how much weight can I lose?” Oonagh said “Not much. Two pounds. Maybe three.” This was not good news. So I decided on the next best option, four days of starvation until the photoshoot.

And that is when fake tan came into my life. Emma always says that tanned fat = muscle, so I went out and bought myself a tube of fake tan and applied it religiously over the next four days. In the coming days, I got so many compliments about my tanned skin, I decided it was for keeps.

Shoot day came, and I was thrilled to find out that the photographer was a woman, and the other girls were just as nervous as I was. In fact, the photographer, Amelia Troubridge, was fantastic. I told her my conditions, “I want to be sitting. My stomach HAS to be hidden. Focus on my legs.” and she found a way to make all four of us look amazing. The other girls were Deborah Flemming from Pistol Panties, Tara Matthews wearing her own line, and Louis Middleton from Shanghai Tang.

The ES Magazine spread.

The shoot came out the following week and I bought 15 copies of the magazine. It looked ok, in fact I was quite relieved. The result could have been much, much worse. I also got quoted from the article in the WGSN press bulletin, which Emma says was a huge coup, as they normally quote people like Karl Lagerfeld and Britney Spears. Now I was known as the swimwear designer who said “I haven’t been in a pool for years. I just lounge next to them; you can’t wear heels in a pool.” Not a bad mantra at all, maybe something for my gravestone.

The American Apparel floral stretch lace bra. I own 5. It's only a matter of time before they fall apart.

I am trying to promise myself I will never shop at American Apparel again. I know that will be hard, because I am addicted to some of their stuff, but I am SICK to death of their crappy quality and even worse customer service. Every time I have to exchange an item of clothing there, because it is faulty, I get scared. Because I know it will be a battle with the (often) rude sales staff to get a replacement product. It has happened THREE times. The third time is the last.

The first time it was in the Downtown Vancouver store, and the manager was possibly the rudest, most ignorant person I have ever met in my entire life. I had to battle with him for half an hour to exchange my shirt (which, after one wear, had stretched to gargantuan proportions, and it was not meant to be oversized.) The idiotic manager had the nerve to suggest to me that I had put it into the dryer, which is “not allowed.” He clearly does not know the basics of laundry, because if you put something into the dryer, IT SHRINKS, not stretches. The second time it was in London, and the sales girl didn’t want to exchange a lace bra because I had cut off the tags. Sorry that I don’t want big white labels on my black lace bra. And the third time was Tuesday… (actually, Tuesday was the fourth time. I did return a faulty garment to the store on 4th avenue once, and the girl happily exchanged it, although the problem here is the fact that I have had to return four items to American Apparel for being faulty, out of about 40 pieces I own. That is not a good percentage)

The American Apparel floral stretch lace panty. Sob! What a mistake buying 12 of them!

On Tuesday I had to return a pair of lace panties that had fallen apart at the seam. I stupidly bought about 15 pieces from their lace lingerie line at once, because I loved them so much, and have had to echange three of them so far. I explained that they were faulty, and wanted to exchange them. She said they didn’t exchange underwear. I told her it was faulty, and it is their responsibility to give me a new one. She asked for the receipt. I told her I didn’t have one (I don’t keep lingerie receipts, since you can’t exchange them.) This argument went on for about 20 minutes, in which I had to go out to refill the metre on my car twice. She even called her manager, who wanted to know the DATE I had bought them (as if I remembered. ) I then had to call the Montreal head office (from my cell phone), be transfered twice, and the someone finally arranged for me to get a new pair of panties. All this hassle and stress, to replace a faulty piece of merchandise.

I am sick of their crappy quality and  I am sick of their non-existent customer service. Actually, I can almost deal with the crappy quality, because I love the shapes so much, but I have to be secure in the knowledge that the company will take responsibility for this and actually exchange a faulty product. Without hassle.

A pile of my American Apparel underwear. That's not including all the clothing I own.

Sorry American Apparel, but you are losing a good customer. I write about how much I love you ALL THE TIME. I support your dress codes and your policies. And I own 3 dresses, 5 pairs of shorts, 2 skirts, 5 t-shirts, a giant pile of underwear, and more. I deserve better than this.

Has anyone else had similar problems with them?

(If my readers are wondering why the hell I own so much underwear from them, it is because they do the best basic, everyday underwear. You can’t wear LaPerla to the gym, now can you?)

- – - – UPDATE – - – -

American Apparel have VERY quickly responded to this post with an apology and a promise to address the issue in the retail stores and the factory. I am glad, I don’t want the break up to be permanent, but I never want to deal with their crappy customer service again. Let’s see what happens.

Spanx has just announced a range for men, described as a “A true cotton compression undershirt that will forever change the way you look and feel in your clothes.” More on this on their website, where they are taking pre-orders.

I somehow doubt this guy needs Spanx for men.

Although I admit that Spanx has its uses, it’s uncomfortable, causes bulges, and I had a traumatizing experience with a shop assistant who tried to get me to wear Spanx crotchless bicycle shorts on my wedding day (I avoided this, thankfully) so the brand sort of scares me. I really hope my husband never gets to the stage where he needs Spanx for men.

Here is Part 2 of my summary of the last decade. Click here for Part 1.

New Blood in the fashion industry and on the catwalks. Images from Style.com

Christophe Decarnin for Balmain.

Tomas Maier for Bottega Veneta.

Christopher Bailey for Burberry Prorsum.

New designer Gareth Pugh.

Ricardo Tisci for Givenchy.

Alber Elbaz for Lanvin.

New designer Marios Schwab.

New designers Rodarte.

New designer Giambattista Valli.

Stefano Pilati for Yves Saint Laurent.

New designer Zac Posen.

Nicolas Ghesquière for Balenciaga.

And I am not forgetting Jonathon Saunders, Proenza Schouler,  Alexander Wang, Philip Lim, Richard Nicoll, and many others (including revivals of Halston and Ossie Clark.) In fact, when I was researching this post, I realised that in Fall 2002, Style.com showed 114 designers’ catwalk collection on their website. For Fall 2009 the number was up to 262.

A New Retail Perspective resulted in an shopping evolution, or revolution.

Dover Street Market in London.

Dover Street Market, considered one of the “best” stores in the world, opened on London’s Dover Street. Curated by Rei Kawakubo from Comme des Garcons, the store continues to innovate.

Primark’s first central London location had people queuing over an hour to buy £1 tights and £3 t-shirts. Dubbed “Primani”, the store continues to attract crowds and has not felt the recession as badly as most high street retailers.

A new retailing concept: The Pop-Up Store. A temporary retail space, opened for a short period of time, sometimes with a limited edition product. This one is a pop up for Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with Rei Kawakubo from Comme des Garcons for a collection of handbags.

Net A Porter changed the way consumers shop for luxury online.

ASOS (As Seen On Screen) started as a site selling copies of celebrities outfits, but as turned into one of the largest, most-successful multi-brand online retailers.

Gilt Groupe is one of the many discount luxury retailers thriving in the recession.

American Apparel sold basics tees with a new angle: using sleazy and sometimes pornographic images to sell a product made in the US in factories where workers had holiday and sick pay.

A Decade to be Forgotten. How many of these fashion trends do you look back on and smile, or cringe? (in no particular order…)

Kate Moss wearing gladiator sandals, first seen at Balenciaga.

Luxury denim, aka the $300 pair of jeans. These ones from Rock and Republic.

Lingerie becomes fashionable again, thanks to brands like Agent Provocateur.

I remember when there were one hour lineups outside the Birkenstock store.

Bling: a trend I definitely did not embrace.

Nu Rave. The worst trend of the 00s. What were they thinking? This look by Cassette Playa.

The IT bag: Chloe Paddington anyone?

and we certainly cant forget the Motorcycle bag by Balenciaga.

The new IT bag: The IT shoe. From top to bottom: Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, and Christian Louboutin. I think we have Sex and the City to thank for this.

On second thought, Crocs were definitely the worst trends of the 00s, with Nu Rave coming in a close second.

Not wearing pants. A Lady Gaga phenomenon, lets hope this one doesn’t last. Image source.

Leggings. These ones by American Apparel.

Boho, Hippie, Hobo, whatever. A look that kept on giving. Sienna Miller image from Dave Hogan/Getty Images.

Skinny jeans helped us to discover the muffin top. These ones by Topshop.

Maybe it was a decade of really bad shoes…. But unfortunately we still haven’t seen the end of the Ugg boot.

Wellington boots by Hunter. Remember when there were for farmers, not festivals?

If anyone had told me that a company would make millions buy selling velour jogging suits, I would have never believed them. Nauseating.

The Birth of the Recessionista and the credit crunch will probably be one of the defining events of the last decade, even though it took place at the end. The losers were the big luxury brands that didn’t have a strong brand identity, hedgefund managers, department stores, anyone selling cars or furniture, and the millions who ended up unemployed and homeless. The winners were the discount retailers, online retailers, anyone selling an education, and MacDonalds.

Susie Bubble as a Recessionista.

Catch Part 3 of 3 “Remembering the Noughties” posts tomorrow!

All images from the brand’s or person’s website, except all catwalk images from style.com, unless otherwise noted.

I love the new photos of Lara Stone in the Spring Summer 2010 Eres campaign. Lets start with Eres, one of the beautiful lingerie brands in the world. I have always favored brands that don’t tailor their products to well-endowed women, which is generally the case with Agent Provocateur and other sexy brands. Eres, and several French brands, make product for french women, which usually means smaller cup sizes. Eres makes the most beautiful basics, so amazing you wouldn’t really need any fancy lingerie if you had a wardrobe full of Eres.

Here are some images from the lingerie collection, from the Eres website:

I have never been one to follow the model gossip, it is just not something I am that interested in. I used to know all the top girls when I worked in Paris at Sonia Rykiel, because we used to cast them for our shows. That was the time of the Brazilians, like Gisele, Fernanda, Mariana, and Ana Claudia, Mario Testino was shooting them all oiled and sexy in the sun, and none of them were size zeros. They all looked amazing, tanned, and very healthy. Now with the whole size zero debate going crazy, I suppose Lara Stone definitely stands out. She is a size 4, which is big by model standards. The industry is going crazy for her, Carine Roitfeld dedicated a whole issue of French Vogue to her, but the sad thing is, she is still feeling pressure to get thin. According to Elle UK, she said “I don’t want to be the fat one anymore, so, I have just started doing Pilates every morning, then going to the gym, running, and swimming.”

Some images of Lara Stone on the catwalk from www.style.com

This image has been getting a lot of attention this week, its the cover of the next issue of Love magazine, with Lara Stone, shot by Mert and Marcus. Everyone is saying she has fabulous breasts, and I won’t deny that. The crazy thing is that this is a body that is considered big by model standards. Who wouldn’t dream of having a body like hers?

I bet Helmut Newton would have loved to shoot her. He is my favourite fashion photographer of all time and he is definitely one of the few photographers that can photograph women in the nude but still make them look uncompromising and powerful.

Helmut Newton's Big Nudes

Anyway, I won’t go on about this for much longer, but I do have a few points to make about size zero and obesity, which I will discuss in a post later this month. Meanwhile, here are the Lara Stone for Eres images. She is beautiful and makes their swimwear look fantastic.

Dear Holts,

I had some very pleasant surprises yesterday when I came in, as well as a few disappointments. I was in a bad mood after work so didn’t want to enter in the shoe department, in fear I could leave potentially feeling worse. I could see some fabulous shoes that were out of my price range, which would not help to feel any better, or, worse, I could see no fabulous shoes at all. In fear of the latter, I went to your lingerie department.

Well Holts, judging by your lingerie department, your customer’s average age must be 65. You should call it your bathrobe department, because that is really what it is, with a few bras and panties and tights. The brand selection was pretty dull, including La Perla, Elle MacPherson, D&G, Lejaby, Donna Karan, and Chantelle (I have the BEST Chantelle lingerie story ever, see the end of the blog.) DKNY tights took up a full wall of prime space, wool tights shouldn’t exactly be the focus of a luxury lingerie department. And there was robes and nighties, robes and nighties, and robes and nighties.

Bathrobe department at Holts, with a bit of predictable D&G leopard print.

You also had another Canadian favourite, a selection of a basic piece in every colour of the rainbow (see Field Trip to Metrotown, Old Navy) this time things by Hanky Panky.

Hanky Panky thongs in every colour of the rainbow. Not so sure about the yellow...

I’ll admit there were a few nice pieces, the lacey Spanx were much better than the crotchless bicycle shorts the brand is usually known for (another great story to tell there…another day), a few nice Donna Karan bras reasonably priced at 89 dollars, and some a few bits of Stella McCartney and D&G (but why is it always the leopard print D&G? There are things in the D&G collection that ARENT leopard print you know…)

Crotchless bicycle shorts by Spanx

So really all you need is a few bits from some fantastic brands so that people like me can go in and treat myself tom something nice. Here is what I suggest, a bit of Princesse Tam Tam, Kiki de Montparnasse, Chantal Thomass, and Wondervoll.

This brand is so underrated.

Kiki de Montparnasse, sounds French but they are actually American.

Beautiful and totally affordable.

Possibly the only cool German lingerie brand.

I could suggest a few more, but I think you would need to start paying me for that…

And by the way, your staff were fantastic. That is one thing you can count on Canada is good customer service. (In case any readers are retailers in the UK, this word may be unfamiliar for you, so the definition of customer service is “the provision of SERVICE to customers before, during and after a purchase” Wikipedia)

As I was leaving I noticed that you were selling Peachoo + Krejberg. Well done Holts! What a fantastic brand, very edgy, but beautiful, and not mainstream at all! That was a very pleasant surprise. I will have a proper look around the womenswear after I’ve hit shoes, sometime very soon, and now you’ve given me something to look forward to!

Peachoo + Krejberg, a very mysterious brand...they don't even have a website.

——–

OK, the Chantelle Lingerie story…This happened when I was teaching at Central Saint Martins over the summer. I had a student from a Middle Eastern country, I won’t say which one, but it wasn’t one of the ones known for its giant luxury malls, nor one in full conflict. I’ll try and re-create the conversation as best I can.

Here is the situation, each student has been assigned a catwalk show, and they need to present a short report on it. My student was given Burberry.

Student: I am sorry, I am not familiar with this brand, Burberry?
Me: Uhhh, sorry?!?!?!?!?!?!
Student: We don’t have this brand in my country.
Me: You MUST have this brand in your country, this brand is in every country.
Student: No, we don’t have many brands, we only have one mall.
Me: Yes, but you should know Burberry, or at least you would have seen Burberry if you had read a fashion magazine. ANY FASHION MAGAZINE.
Student: No, no, never seen it.
Me: You must have. Ok, do you have Chanel, because if you have Chanel you probably have Burberry. And EVERYONE has Chanel.
Student: Yes, we have Chanel, but only the bras.
Me: They don’t make bras…
Student: Oh, sorry, I meant Chantelle. We have Chantelle, not Chanel.
Me: Please don’t tell me you have just confused Chanel and Chantelle.
I then needed to take a breather.