Brief Encounter ; Suddenly They're All at It Every Pretty Young Thing in Town has Her Own Pants Range. Let It Never Be Said Again That Englishwomen Cannot Compete with the French at Underwear. Alice Bb Meets the Girls Pulling It Off

Summary

---

Today I'm meeting a handful of the newest underwear designers in a penthouse suite at The Soho Hotel. The room is stuffed with photographers and makeup and hair people, and padding around among them are six women of varying ages, sizes and states of undress. The tallest and blondest of the lot is Kalita Al Swaidi, 23. She started making knickers while in her final year at Edinburgh, reading English literature. 'I made the first pair for a friend's wedding, from antique lace and ribbon I found at Portobello,' says Kalita, crossing and uncrossing her annoyingly long, brown legs.

'Then, about a year ago, I showed them to the owner of Musa, a lingerie shop in Kensington, who ordered three pairs.'

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Brief Encounter ; Suddenly They're All at It Every Pretty Young Thing in Town has Her Own Pants Range. Let It Never Be Said Again That Englishwomen Cannot Compete with the French at Underwear. Alice Bb Meets the Girls Pulling It Off

A couple of weeks later the pants were all sold and Harpers Queen wanted to write an article about her. So Al Swaidi found herself in the confusing position of writing her dissertation on Hemingway while stitching smalls, which are now sold in Coco Ribbon on Sloane Street.

Before Agent Provocateur was launched in 1994, there were really only three underwear guises on offer: classy,...

See the full content of this document

---