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Industry | Fashion |
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Founded | 1999 |
Headquarters | London, England, United Kingdom |
Key people | Katie Thomas ( née Halford) Richard Thomas |
Products | Lingerie |
Website | www |
What Katie Did is a British lingerie design house founded in 1999 by Katie Thomas.
In 1999, being unable to afford fully fashioned stockings, Thomas decided to invest £100 in nylons to sell at The London Fetish Fair. [1] This led to Thomas creating her own website.
In 2002, What Katie Did's first reproduction of the Bullet bra was launched, the first to be produced in the country. [2] The next year, the company opened a boutique in London Portobello. [3] In 2010, Thomas was asked to advise on an bra of Marilyn Monroe that was put up for auction.[ citation needed ]
Thomas has also appeared advising on corsets on ABC's Nightline in 2012 and in the same year was nominated for Cosmopolitan's Businesswoman of the Year. [4]
The brand recreates designs from the 1950s including the bullet bra, which has been worn by celebrities such as Madonna and Rihanna. [5] [6] What Katie Did are also known for their steel boned corsets. [7]
Models for the company include Bernie Dexter, Missy Malone, Jami Deadly and Miss Polly Rae.[ citation needed ]
Lingerie is a category of primarily women's clothing including undergarments, sleepwear, and lightweight robes. The choice of the word is often motivated by an intention to imply that the garments are alluring, fashionable, or both. In a 2015 US survey, 75% of women reported having worn "sexy lingerie" in their lifetime.
Frederick's of Hollywood is an American lingerie brand formerly with stores in shopping malls across the United States. In 2015, all 111 retail stores were closed before a bankruptcy filing. The brand was acquired by Authentic Brands Group and was relaunched as an online-only store, FOH Online Corp. In 2018, Naked Brand Group, Inc. acquired FOH Online Corp.
Cleavage is the narrow depression or hollow between the breasts of a woman. The superior portion of cleavage may be accentuated by clothing such as a low-cut neckline that exposes the division, and often the term is used to describe the low neckline itself, instead of the term décolletage. Joseph Breen, head of the U.S. film industry's Production Code Administration, coined the term in its current meaning when evaluating the 1943 film The Outlaw, starring Jane Russell. The term was explained in Time magazine on August 5, 1946. It is most commonly used in the parlance of Western female fashion to refer to necklines that reveal or emphasize décolletage.
Berlei is a brand of women's lingerie and in particular bras and girdles.
The history of bras is closely tied to the social status of women, the evolution of fashion, and shifting views of the female body over time.
Bra size indicates the size characteristics of a bra. While there is a number of bra sizing systems in use around the world, the bra sizes usually consist of a number, indicating the size of the band around the woman's torso, and one or more letters that indicate the breast cup size. Bra cup sizes were invented in 1932 while band sizes became popular in the 1940s. For convenience, because of the impracticality of determining the size dimensions of each breast, the volume of the bra cup, or cup size, is based on the difference between band length and over-the-bust measurement.
A bra, short for brassiere or brassière, is a form-fitting underwear that is primarily used to support and cover a woman's breasts. A typical bra consists of a chest band that wraps around the torso, supporting two breast cups that are held in place by shoulder straps. A bra usually fastens in the back, using a hook and eye fastener, although bras are available in a large range of styles and sizes, including front-fastening and backless designs. Some bras are designed for specific functions, such as nursing bras to facilitate breastfeeding or sports bras to minimize discomfort during exercise.
Underwear, underclothing, or undergarments are items of clothing worn beneath outer clothes, usually in direct contact with the skin, although they may comprise more than a single layer. They serve to keep outer clothing from being soiled or damaged by bodily excretions, to lessen the friction of outerwear against the skin, to shape the body, and to provide concealment or support for parts of it. In cold weather, long underwear is sometimes worn to provide additional warmth. Special types of undergarments have religious significance. Some items of clothing are designed as undergarments, while others, such as T-shirts and certain types of shorts, are appropriate both as underwear and outerwear. If made of suitable material or textile, some underwear can serve as nightwear or swimwear, and some undergarments are intended for sexual attraction or visual appeal.
The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is an annual promotional event sponsored by and featuring Victoria's Secret, a brand of lingerie. From 1995 to 2018, Victoria's Secret used the show to market its goods in high-profile settings. Models under contract to the company, known as Victoria's Secret Angels, were key participants at the event. The fashion show was cancelled in 2019, the same year its organizer, Edward Razek, resigned under public pressure. It made a comeback and was rebranded in 2023 as a Prime Video special titled, “The Tour ‘23”.
An underwire bra is a brassiere that utilizes a thin, semi-circular strip of rigid material fitted inside the brassiere fabric to help lift, separate, shape, and support a woman's breasts. The wire may be made of metal, plastic, or resin. It is sewn into the bra fabric and under each cup, from the center gore to under the wearer's armpit. Many different brassiere designs incorporate an underwire, including shelf bras, demi bras, nursing bras, and bras built into other articles of clothing, such as tank tops, dresses and swimsuits.
Wearing underwear as outerwear is a fashion trend popularized by celebrities, sports and media. It began as a practical and comfortable variation of clothing, such as the T-shirt and the sleeveless shirt, but later evolved into provocative, controversial fashion statements. 21st century versions include the display of thongs and bras in women's clothing, and the display of underpants under low-slung pants in men. Wearing underwear as outerwear has historical antecedents in the display of undergarments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Silhouette is an English manufacturer of women's lingerie. It was founded in 1887.
Kay Cohen is an Australian fashion designer and business woman based in Sydney, Australia. Cohen has led a number of lingerie design brands, most notably as Founder and Creative Director of Pleasure State and as General Manager and Creative Director of Elle Macpherson's Lingerie label Elle Macpherson Intimates, also Cohen is known as the inventor of the Biofit uplift bra.
Rigby & Peller is a British luxury lingerie brand and retailer. The company was founded in 1939 by Gita Peller, a Jewish Hungarian refugee who settled in London, and Bertha Rigby, an English corsetière, with a shop in South Molton Street in London's West End. As of 2011, they had seven stores as well as a website.
La Perla is a London-headquartered Italian lingerie and swimwear maker owned by German entrepreneur Lars Windhorst through Tennor Holding B.V. The brand was founded by couturière Ada Masotti in Bologna in 1954.
Curvy Kate is a lingerie brand specialising in D – K cup Bras and Swimwear. They are currently based in Uxbridge, London. Curvy Kate lingerie is designed for the curvy woman and for small back sizes through to plus size bras with back bands from a 28" – 44". They officially launched in July 2009 at the Harrogate Lingerie Show.
A bralette is a lightweight bra without an underwire, designed primarily for comfort. Bralettes are also sometimes worn as outerwear top, and are also designed as undershirts for girls developing breasts. The size of the bralette also differs from that of a bra: Instead of band width and cup size, normal clothing sizes are commonly used.
Chantelle is a lingerie brand belonging to the Groupe Chantelle, a French lingerie company founded in 1876 by François Auguste Gamichon. A pioneer in manufacturing elastic knits, the Chantelle brand grew thanks to the 'Kretz tulle' used first in its corsets, then in its bras. The Kretz family has owned the company since the 1900s.
Baci Lingerie is a large retailer of women's lingerie founded in the United States, with multiple stores located internationally on several continents.
Thousands of years of history provide evidence of the differing fashions, cultural norms, and artistic depictions regarding cleavage and clothes that accentuate or flaunt cleavage. From the absolute modesty of the 16th century, to the Merveilleuses Directoire dresses with their transparency, the décolleté has followed the times and is much more than a simple fashion effect.