Is your lingerie drawer in need of a springtime overhaul?

Spring is the perfect time for a little wardrobe reshuffle but don’t neglect your underwear drawer.  If the elastic has gone a bit stringy in your waistbands or some of the colours could be described as a ‘washed out grey’ you need to do some binning.

The best outfits feel a little let-down (sometimes literally) by mediocre underwear so take Gok’s well-worn advice and get some proper outfit foundations to fit and flatter.

H&M have come up with a surprisingly good collection encompassing sporty-non wired bras (see Helen’s post for more on this low-maintenance option), sexy push-ups and ever-popular shapewear at a snip of  the price of brand-leaders SPANX. With recent research by French scientists suggesting we could be better off wearing no bra and going freestyle (um, no ta…) I feel more compelled than ever to invest in some new bras and knicks.

You can see the full H&M collection here, however I’ve collated a few of my favourites below:

Push-up bra £14.99:

Prolong the life of delicates and/or avoid the arduous job of handwashing by using wash bags, £3.99:

Adopt the sporty trend with this block-coloured, non-wired bra, £9.99:

Optimise and smooth your silhouette with a some sleek underpinnings, £19.99:

Offering minimal support but perfect for holidays and wearing underneath sheer garments, £6.99 for two:

And why not brighten up boring T-shirt bras with colourful options, such as this tangerine tango delight at £12.99:

Top Soft Bras On The High Street

I enjoy a good shopping session as much as the next person, but there are a few items that when I am faced with replacing, I literally go cold at the thought.  Jeans, shoes and bras are my shopping kryptonite and I tend to leave it until the very last minute to brave the high street in search of worthy replacements.  Whilst I am fully aware I also bitch about knicker shopping in the UK, bras can be an even worse experience.

Whilst I am not blessed with a Kelly Brook-esque rack, nor the desire to ‘plump things up’ surgically, this does mean that I don’t particularlly need the support of Mr Underwire and his welt-inducing friends.  So if you are like me, and find buying bras a torturous experience, why not opt for the soft variety?  Urban Outfitters and Topshop have been doing a small line of cracking soft bras for a while now (Some of the below I actually have and they are ridiculously comfy you forget your wearing them).  Furthermore, I ventured to the new & Other Stories concept store last week and was delighted to see they too have jumped on the soft bra bandwagon and launched a gorgeous range with matching bottoms to boot…

Urban Outfitters (Approx £16)

& Other Stories (£19)

& Other Stories (£19)

Topshop (£18)

Topshop (£12)

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

Get Fit at Victoria’s Secret

Although it opened back in August, it’s taken me a while to traipse over to New Bond Street and sample a bit of deluxe lingerie shopping in the shape of Victoria’s Secret.  We’d all like to look like Miranda Kerr (obvs) but, being the cynic I am, feel it may take a tad more rigour than buying some new pants.

In all honesty I probably wouldn’t have ever ventured to the disco-balled, multi-floored, shopping extravaganza had I not been on a work comp-shop.  It is most definitely aimed at tourists and teenagers so in their defence, I’m neither.

The store feels a bit Hollister with lots of black surfaces but thankfully better viewing light and more ambient music.  You’re hit with lots of pink and sparkle and some of the styles can look a bit chav-tastic en masse (although the buyers probably call the collection: ‘fun & flirty’).  Mannequins wear costumes from the high-profile Victoria’s Secret shows which, we all know, look utterly spectacular on the actual supermodel, however the mannequin versions look like cheaply made fancy-dress costumes.  Note to visual merchandisers: it really doesn’t translate well.  I’d go as far as to say they look nylon-y and a bit creepy.

 

Staff (and security) are plentiful and eager to help at just a hint of a glance in their direction.  Customer service has obviously been established as priority one which (although totally, like…American) is refreshing as unlike a clothes emporium, lingerie is more technical and requires additional guidance. Staff are armed with a measuring tape poised to perform a swift-bra-fitting right there on the shop-floor for ladies on-the-go.

I opted for the fitting room, one-to-one consultation.  You’re assigned a ‘store associate’ (who wear head-to-toe black and come fully equipped with a headset) to measure you up and then give you some demo-bras to try on and check the fit.  Despite the waiting list being busy, my name (which was exotically pronounced Johanna) reached the top in super-quick time.  There are enough staff to allocate one per fitting room so there’s no-one outside shouting ‘who needed the 38DD in the soft beige’, everything is slick and quick and you don’t have to awkwardly peer out with the curtain around your head to get someone’s attention. 

I was worried my store associate, Lauren, might ignore my rather bland requests and perhaps come back with some oversized wings and a diamante tanga thong.  To my relief, she returned with 5 styles, all of which fitted me and my criteria.  Your preferences are then noted on a ‘Your perfect Fit’ card and you’re free to explore the store with your card on-hand to choose your selected styles in the ocean of colours provided. Lauren (now we’re mates an all…) even wrote which floor I could find each style on.  Too easy.

 

Although with this uber-service comes some American ‘have a great day’ clichés and a compulsory interactive experience, we seem to need it, as many of us walk around wearing ill-fitting bras.  The Starbucks style over-use of your first name took some getting used to but the service was quick and the staff are knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

Had I not gone in for the fitting service, I would never have purchased anything as where would one start?  I like to think I’m an experienced, savvy shopper, but the sheer scale of choice is enough to make you walk out again.  With literally thousands of bra options, this scale of service is essential for a place like Victoria’s Secrets and I can see it catching on, even amongst the Brits.

Follow me @joanna_knowles

FASHION MOMENTS | The Teddy

No, not like a teddy bear. This is another piece I wrote for my London College of Fashion short course, inspired by the ‘fashion moment’ pieces that unbelievably great fashion writer Colin McDowell has been writing since probably before I was born.

Ask a modern audience about their opinion of the teddy in fashion and chances are they’ll think you’re talking about a cuddly toy, not an item of clothing. Originating in the 1910′s, the teddy is an all-in-one undergarment that combines knickers and a camisole. Usually loose fitting and made from silk, it most closely resembled what we now call a playsuit. Why was it called the teddy? No one knows for sure, but American Speech IV, published in 1929, theorised the name was derived from ‘its real or fancied resemblance in general shape…to the teddy-bear.’

Gaining popularity in the 1920’s as the preferred garment to slip under one’s flapper dress, the teddy was a decidedly risqué prospect at the time. In 1930 film ‘Party Girl’ the titular character (a thinly veiled term for a prostitute) is seen wearing just a black lace teddy. The film was considered so unsuitable for public consumption it was banned in the UK. By the end of the 1940’s the teddy had fallen out of fashion, but it enjoyed resurgence in the 1980’s, seen on the likes of Joan Collins as the feisty Alexis in US soap opera Dallas. Reimagined as a tighter, skimpier bodysuit in the wake of the ‘hardbody’ ideals of that hedonistic decade, this teddy was altogether more provocative. Fast forward thirty years and the teddy has ventured into even sexier territory. Google the words ‘teddy lingerie’ now and the resulting sites are entirely NSFW. A far cry from their delicate belle époque ancestors, the ridiculously skimpy contraptions on sale now are more like porn star costumes – the words crotchless and fishnet feature heavily. That’s not to say the traditional teddy has entirely disappeared. Ebay is doing a roaring trade in vintage and replica silk teddies. For burlesque loving girls with their rouged lips and rolled 1940s hairdos, the teddy is as relevant as ever.

Sizing up: On the importance of good underwear

It was Coco Chanel who reportedly said that ‘Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.’ It’s a trite cliché to say that when dressing, women should start with a good bra and work up from there. But apparently I was, until recently, one of the 80 odd percent of women wearing the wrong size for years, so excuse my excitement as I rave about how wonderful it is to wear one that fits properly. (It makes your clothes hang better! Now I finally understand all of that fashionista chat about silhouettes and the importance of underwear. Oh, I could take on the world in this well fitting bra, I can walk taller, prouder!)

I’ve always loved pretty underwear – it can be the secret that puts a spring in your step, your hidden super power. But ever since I bought my first bra, I’ve always felt almost as if I’m a fraud, a child pretending to be a grownup… that the shop assistants don’t take me quite seriously when I ask them for advice about which bra size I am. (I’m not sure why this is – I always put it down to the fact that I didn’t have big enough boobs, but perhaps it’s just because a lot of shop assistants are lazy or feel awkward about the whole thing.) I’ve fluctuated between wearing painful bras that ride up and dig into you in all the wrong ways, and ones that flap around with too much room in them and make you feel like your boobs are disappearing off the face of the planet.

The other day, I finally got up the courage to go and get properly fitted in Bravissimo. My hesitation and embarrassment was down to the fact that I was sure I wasn’t big enough; I felt like an intruder. But the lovely, motherly lady in the fitting rooms told me that it didn’t matter, she’d let me know what size I was even if they didn’t have the right size for me there. Turns out I was way off, so it’s a good thing I checked. Now I can’t wait to donate all of my old, ill-fitting bras to the bra bank (for charity, there’s one in every Bravissimo shop) and start a new collection. In an ideal world, it would be made up of Elle Macpherson Intimates and the chic French brand, Princesse Tam Tam. If you haven’t ever had a proper bra fitting – DO IT!

I’ll leave you with the brilliant Caitlin Moran, on the subject of bad bras:

‘The relief of taking off a bad bra is immeasurable…. Bad bra removal is a measure of your friendships. If you would feel comfortable in going round to someone’s house at the end of a long day, and saying, ‘I’m just going to take my bra off,’ you know you are intimate friends.’