NEW YORK — I see London, I see France, but how about them runway underpants? Chances are, that’s not a question front-row regulars entertain at New York Fashion Week. At Friday morning’s Kenneth Cole show, for example, it’s safe to say that all eyes were on the ready-to-wear trappings — crushed velvet dresses and double-breasted wool coats — and not on the skivvies beneath. As they should be. The Cosabella nude low-rider G-strings the models wore were meant to keep the emphasis on the designer goods themselves.
“They’re skin-colored, thin and the elastic waist is really flat so you absolutely can’t see them underneath the clothes,” says Brooke Melzer, marketing director for Cosabella, of the dozens of bottoms she sent to Cole for the show. “The same thing happens during awards season. All the stylists call for the same piece for exactly the same reason.”
So is invisible better when it comes down to flaunting your latest collection? Well, not always. Yeohlee Teng tapped vintage hounds Mark Walsh and Leslie Chin for their collection of cotton lingerie from the Thirties. “Fall is about the Fascist era — it’s romance and war,” Teng says, adding that a number of her models will be donning men’s cotton boxers under her full skirts at her show on Wednesday. “They are used to evoke the mood of the period.”
And of course, there are the innerwear-cum-outerwear designers such as adam+eve’s Adam Lippes and Araks Yeramyan, both of whom are bowing their full ready-to-wear collections during New York Fashion Week. Will certain unmentionables be a part of their shows? But of course. “Everyone knows me as a lingerie designer,” says Yeramyan, “and this is a kind of transition between lingerie and ready-to-wear. I’m doing pleating in my ready-to-wear, so I added that to the lingerie with pleated panties.” As for Lippes, he says, he’s using hand-worked embroideries and appliqués on his underpinnings.
And then there’s Nanette Lepore, who says she was making slips simply as a functional piece to wear under the sheer chiffons. “But they looked so good, we started using them,” she says. “Although, sometimes in the buff is best because you don’t want to worry about problems like panty lines.”
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Cynthia Rowley is sending her models down the runways in the buff, so to speak. “We wanted cashmere thongs, but couldn’t get them made in time. My assistant William wanted edible undies,” Rowley quips.
Edible undies? Sounds like something better suited to the Heatherette boys, Richie Rich and Traver Rains. For their show on Tuesday, the designers are giving us a preview of their innerwear line they’re launching next spring, with Swarovski crystal-studded bras and “special” thongs with a kick.
“We like things that shimmer and shine and gave our lingerie that extra little something with surprise messages inside the panties,” says Rich. “They say things like ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ and ‘Try it, you’ll like it.’ You know, tongue-in-cheek fun.”