Reawakening the Brief, and Other Unmentionables
A good set of underwear can reveal who we want to be
By Julia Dault

excerpt- complete article, Walrus Magazine, July/August 2006 or online at: walrusmagazine.com/articles/2006.07-style-underwear-story/

The multi-billion-dollar underwear industry offers an overwhelming lexicon to meet our undergarment needs: lace, cotton, Lycra, microfibre, and more, stretching this way and that, in every sort of cut and cup. With underwear we want coverage but not too much, we want practicality but within reason, we want sex appeal but not rank whorishness (at least not on a regular basis). Sometimes we just want to replace the old duds with newer, pristine versions.

When coupled with underwear’s everydayness, demands like these make it an intense article of clothing. On the one hand, it is just a required piece of the social armour that is easy to ignore. Find a brand or cut you like and you’re set. And yet as a second skin, it is a heavily loaded article of clothing for men and women alike. Something that is barely there can distill intentions and raise conscious or subconscious sexual desires, foreshadowing what you do and who you want to be. It is the last physical threshold to sex. This push and pull is what some lingerie designers thrive on.

“We like to call it the total fashion experience,” says Tiffany Ho, offering a designer’s buzz for underwear’s multi-tasking. Ho, co-founder and co-director of Third Floor Design, a boutique lingerie company based in Vancouver, is well versed in the language of unmentionables. Since 2003, Ho and business partner Brenda Li have been busy making comfortable and stylish underwear for women. The company’s tag—“frivolous necessities—“is a clear statement of its intention to design undergarments where sexiness isn’t co-opted by utility, or vice versa. Their trademark soft bra and boy shorts are proof of their interdisciplinary strengths.

For Ho and Li, it’s private knowledge—the sequestering of good design beneath layers of clothing—that lends psychological power to their designs. “If you put on a good pair of underwear you feel more confident,” says Ho, adding “even though no one else might know that you have it on.” Their constant hunt for new fabrics like dry weaves and new velours, and bold, colourful patterns, means that their designs aren’t easily subsumed into the one-foot-two-foot routine of getting dressed.

Watch for Third Floor on an upcoming episode of Shop the World hosted by fashion guru and designer David Emmanuel. Show airs globally including Fashion TV in Canada, and USA affiliates including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and other independant channels.