“If you don’t know what’s in your knickers, should you be wearing them?” asked a short film showing at recently-concluded Paris lingerie show, the globe’s premier underwear event.
After foods, cosmetics and street-clothes, the shift to organic has finally hit lingerie—the cutting edge of female seduction that cannot stand the slightest compromise on style. “Green is out of the closet,” said Karine Lebreton of trendspotters Promostyl. “Green is glam.”
Long seen as frumpy, dowdy and dull, green-friendly lingerie is hitting shop-shelves in the form of sexy satin or silk bras and briefs, and other lacy bits and pieces. “People think eco is hemp or granola-looking,” said designer Jenny White of lingerie firm Eco-Boudoir.
“We make eco sexy,” said the founder of the two-year-old firm that sells to top department stores such as Harvey Nichols, John Lewis and Le Bon Marche.
Her eye-catching undies, featuring sultry reds and blacks, ranged from tiny briefs to structured bras and spicy eyemasks—in organic silk, organic cotton, bamboo or lenpur, a new textile fibre made from white fir wood pulp.
“People should know what’s in their knickers because the textile industry is one of the most polluting in the world,” said White, who produced the campaign film at the lingerie fair highlighting the ugly side of undies.
A pair of pants, it says, produces 18 kilos of CO2E, the standard measure of carbon footprint, while 20,000 litres of water are used to produce every kilo of cotton. “I care about the planet,” said 32-year-old White. “I eat organic food, I use organic cosmetics, I wanted to set up a company without trashing the planet.”
But of all fashion, lingerie is the most difficult to make, often requiring some 30 different bits of fabric. So no wonder manufacturers have hesitated on adding to the sale price by going more expensively organic.
“I think all manufactures are beginning to do what is necessary to marry their style with organic considerations,” said Jina Luciani at just-established French firm Occidente.
