Does luxury lingerie empower you?

May 20, 2019 written by
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Westerners have been heard commenting about luxury lingerie, mentioning the same as empowering. Lingerie for them is certainly lends an ‘oomph’ factor.

They prefer to shop for lingerie only after taking a proper decision about it. They pay a lot of attention to the make, size, style, and perhaps the brand tag. That’s why they mention in unison the comfort and the good aspects of luxury lingerie. However, back home, lingerie is more a necessity…at least it has lived up to that expectation for years now.

Have the views altered over the years, especially when now a plethora of luxury brands have started entering the Indian market on a pretty price tag. So, is luxury lingerie really empowering? What do Indians have to say? Let’s hear it from the market and people from different walks of life.

Established in the year 2018, Lady World has over the last one year gained enough prominence in the city. This shop acts as a one-stop destination for expensive and up-market lingerie. Over the course of its journey, the brand has always successfully provided customer satisfaction, which in turn has helped them garner a vast base of customers, which continues to grow by the day. Located at a prominent point in Kandivali, this quaint store sticks up a range of classy brands that only brings in luxury within a budget.

Jyotsna Ghosalkar

Luxury lingerie personally for me is very important and it holds a special position for the customers. There was a time when people did not understand the lingerie make so much. Today, Indians value thin cup, better lining and laces. So, luxury has undoubtedly found a new place in a woman’s wardrobe today.

Not only from a retailer’s point of view but as a women and a lingerie customer myself, I have grown to feel and understand the difference between normal lingerie and luxury pieces.

The comfort that one gets just by wearing a luxury piece of lingerie is amazing. Thus, I always try to stock in the best of this category from the mid to high range brands.

As I know luxury comes with a price, selling too up-market a range within the local space can hamper my sales. However, because I agree with tasteful pieces and know that they can accentuate and empower a woman; so I hand-pick luxury within an affordable range for the audience I cater to.

Shweta Dasgupta (Ghosh) is a published writer. She has freelanced for many years, with leading national dailies, like TOI, Hindustan Times and The Indian Nation. She writes in English, Hindi and Bangla, her mother tongue. Passionate about writing, she pens poems, short stories and shayaries…all.

Shweta Dasgupta (Ghosh)

Shweta Dasgupta (Ghosh)

Luxury lingerie is all over the counter. Sadly, in India, it is mostly the international brands with steep price tags; hence, accessible to a certain section of society. The very word defines its prominence. This exclusivity of donning one definitely gives a high. It is Expensive, Exclusive and Effective; a symbol of taste and status that men and women love to flaunt and discuss these days. The band of the brief with the brands name peeping over one’s jeans was a rage not so long ago!

The Indian market of lingerie, once in the black and white era, is now gasping with the advent of luxury brands, is like oxygen to my ‘inner world’. If I have the liberty to wear what I like without bothering about the world, for me it is empowering. I know the world will want to and eventually will follow me. The image of myself in a luxury lingerie makes me smile, give me my money’s worth, which the otherwise ‘conservative look’ fails to arouse. I love my body and I love to adorn it in luxury.

That’s what the luxury brands do to you.

Their product comes with the three C’s – Comfortable, Confident and Carefree. Ten years ago I struggled to hide my brassiere straps, now I go strapless; detachable, padded non-padded; seamless to ‘show’ less…feathered ones to the Swarovski studded; sheer silks to the lacy light weights, I experiment. That’s liberty!

Aparupa Ghosh is an alumnus of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology specialising in Textile Design. She currently runs a textile venture named Studio Syu in Kolkata, which works with local artisans to create hand block printed and hand painted textile products celebrating the beauty of handmade.

Aparupa Ghosh

Aparupa Ghosh

I don’t think luxury lingerie is empowering. Luxury lingerie is sure bold and beautiful, makes you feel good and confident inside, but at the depth of it, it doesn’t do anything to change or address the real issues of basic human rights, gender equality and dignity and respect for life being faced by majority of the Indian women even today.

Luxury lingerie, which caters only to a handful of privileged women who can afford it and have the body type to wear it, makes it a frivolous and superficial take on empowerment.

The idea of luxury is still defined by a price tag, which is hefty and unaffordable for many. Perhaps, even if the price tag is not so much an issue, the factor of luxury is in itself highly intimidating.

Thus, it is a concept well shunned away from thousands and so, for me it can never be empowering!

A multi-faceted woman Lopamudra dons many caps…she is a fashion designer and curator by profession, who loves to spend her time doing something worthwhile for the society. Recently crowned Mrs India IAB, her feisty nerve has got a fresh motivation. She has always been bold about her opinions and does not shy away from ‘calling a spade a spade’. Here’s what she had to say about lingerie and empowerment.

Lopamudra Mandal

Lopamudra Mandal

Luxury lingerie to me is extremely empowering. As long as someone wears it with the right intention, luxury lingerie can never work against you.

Perhaps, one of the biggest names in this category for me will be Victoria’s Secret. Personally, if I aspire for such a brand and finally get to buy it then why not showcase it in a nice way? Why will I want to hide away something that is so dreamy, aspirational and motivating? It certainly is empowering to flaunt such a piece of inner wear with courage and pride.

Also, I believe as long as your choices do not harm the better part of the society or any individual, then you can carry on wearing what you believe in and that will certainly empower you from within, as it lets you bring out your inner self more than anything else.

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