Now that we're well into May, lingerie brands are still in the midst of releasing their spring/summer collections, and some have already brought out their fall/winter designs. Not to mention the multiple brands that no longer bring out new designs for new seasons. Bordelle, a UK-based luxury bondage inspired brand is one of the first to tease their fall collection to the public. While I've been a fan of the brand for years, I find this collection and lookbook to be confusing and not entirely cohesive at first glance. Many of the pieces are beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I don't understand the story.
To provide a brief background of the company before we begin, Bordelle was created in 2009 in London to fill a gap between luxury lingerie and bondage that lacking from the market. Founder Alexandra Popa launched the brand because she found that bondage inspired lingerie was often made with poor fabrics and lacked attention to detail, and overall, a luxurious experience. All pieces are made from luxury materials like satin adjustable elastics, high quality laces, and 24k gold plated hardware. Bordelle offers customers its seasonal lines, staples from their main collection, a bridal line, swimwear, and atelier services like made-to-measure and "ultimate" bespoke.
Their AW18/19 collection seems to be divided by a ballet-inspired collection called Allegra, and a Spanish-inspired collection titled Amaya, that are both supposed to tie into one another with the inspiration of the "female form in motion". This is an interesting idea, especially for lingerie, but I find the designs in both don't relate to one another well enough for a complete collection with a story. To write this, I'll separate my thoughts by each mini "collection".
The Allegra line is quite a bit sportier than what Bordelle has done in the past and while I love the baby pink, some of these designs are duds for me. I could do without the large "BORDELLE" branding on the pink pieces as I find it detracts from the beauty of the garments. This type of branding on lingerie reminds me of brands like Calvin Klein or Tommy Hilfiger, which are priced much lower than Bordelle.
The above pieces are what I find the least interesting, mostly because these are pieces I've seen over and over again. The bralette falls in line with their sportier aesthetic, but this lighter style would better suit a spring/summer collection because it's lightweight, and I feel the same about the suspender and thong. While they do have those signature Bordelle elements, like the satin elastic and 24k gold plated hardware, these pieces have been done before, at much lower prices.
While pricing for this collection is not out yet, we can compare with what they currently have on their website. Bordelle's Art Deco Soft Cup Bra is £120, or $162USD/$208CAD and to compare with a similar design, Starker's Alayna Bralette is $67CAD, or £38/$52USD. The suspender also reminds me a great deal of pieces from Kayleigh Peddie, whose prices are also less expensive than Bordelle but I can't access their pieces currently because they're on hiatus until later in the month.
I'm sure there will be customers who like a sportier aesthetic and will be happy with these designs, but to me, they're a miss for the brand. Firstly, they seem to have nothing to do with the main story, the Spanish pieces, and secondly, they aren't anything inspiring. What I've always loved about Bordelle is how innovative they are with their designs. The brand is the first to create pieces with adjustable band sizes and were at the forefront of the strappy lingerie trend. So many of their pieces have knocked the lingerie world's socks off and this collection just doesn't. Perhaps it's too much to expect a brand to constantly come out with pieces that'll disrupt the industry, but I do expect from a brand like this, at its pricepoint, to make my heart stop. This collection just doesn't do that for me. For a brand that's known for its innovative nature, this is a bit lacklustre.
Along with the Allegra collection is the also sporty Lea line. These pieces I do find more interesting than those in the Allegra collection, but still have the same issues that Allegra does: I've seen them over and over again before. Not to say that they're not cute, but these are pieces that you can get the look for at a much lower cost. Aesthetically, Allegra and Lea are fairly similar, which makes sense as they are both inspired by forms of dance. Lea is inspired by street style and dancing (a predominately black art form) and this raised a red flag for me reading it as Bordelle has appropriated various cultures for past inspiration, which I'll get into when discussing the Amaya collection.
Not to continue nitpicking, but this passage from their description of the collection rubbed me the wrong way: "This exceptionally experimental range finds inspiration in the multidimensional art of Vogueing and the intensity and power associated with this artistic form of dance, a true homage to the strength of the female form". While many people attribute Vogueing to Madonna and other pop stars, the practice actually comes from drag ballroom culture among black and latinx drag queens. I believe it was a latinx drag queen and cheoreographer who introduced Madonna to Vogueing in the first place. What I'm saying is that the practice isn't as cis-centric as Bordelle makes it seem and comes across as a bit TERFy.
The pieces from the "Spanish" collection are the ones that stand out to me most, these are the pieces that make my heart race. But my love for these designs is tainted a bit, but I'll get into that soon. This range, the Amaya range, is inspired by the Spanish Flamenco dancer, Carmen Amaya. Many of their staple designs have been reimagined in new colours and fabrics, and the laces were made specifically for this range. What I do love about this collection is the pastels, gorgeous laces, and a feminization of their signature bondage style. What I'm not crazy about, is the use of Spanish culture as an inspiration. It's one thing to draw inspiration from an individual, like Carmen Amaya and her work as a Flamenco dancer, but it's another to use a culture, and what it seems is happening in this lookbook is cultural appropriation.
The designs themselves do not seem to represent Flamenco costumes at all, which are over-the-top and feature ruffles, velvet, sequins, and embroidery. The closest this collection comes to that is in the lace designs, but other than that, they are still very bondage inspired and far from Flamenco costumes. Secondly, the lookbook shows the model dressed as a bullfighter, not a flamenco dancer. Bullfighting is a controversial practice in Spanish culture and what people have most often dressed up as to represent a Spaniard, or anyone Latinx for that matter. The bullfighter uniform as a costume often comes from a place of racism and ignorance to Spanish culture, alongside the complicated nature of bullfighting in Spain and other countries as a cultural practice.
The thing is, this isn't the first time Bordelle has appropriated other cultures for their collections and lookbooks. Their SS16 line was the "Japonisme" collection, which featured a white model donning bondage-inspired lingerie with chopsticks in her hair, holding a fan and an oil-paper umbrella. The line was supposed to be inspired by Japanese culture but other than the stereotypical chopsticks in the hair, the lingerie didn't represent Japanese art or culture at all. Later in 2016, Bordelle released their Frida Kahlo collection, inspired by Kahlo's art and by Mexican culture. The lookbook for the Frida Kahlo collection was not as obviously appropriative as the Japonisme lookbook, but I do always find it strange when companies create collections inspired by Kahlo. Kahlo was a socialist (it's a prevalent theme in her art) and would have hated for her work and likeness to be the inspiration for selling consumer goods. Also given the amount of suffering and sadness depicted in Kahlo's work and in her life, it does seem odd to take that and sell it. But these are my personal opinions about using Kahlo as a reference. For reference to what I'm talking about, I added some photos below of examples from both lookbooks.
While I love Bordelle's designs, I think that as a brand, they have to do better. It's 2018 and it's no longer acceptable to use other cultures as costumes to sell lingerie, or anything for that matter. I also think they need to do more research into what they're talking about and using as inspiration for their collections because it's quite easy to poke holes in what they're saying about themselves and representing.
Overall as a release, I find this launch to be strange and disconnected and would have been better to launch the sportier Allegra and Lea collections earlier as its own line as opposed to them being an add-on to the Amaya collection. In some respects, I've been let down by Bordelle, but I hope they will educate themselves on cultural appropriation and learn to move past it. Their designs are good enough without a white model wearing it and chopsticks in her hair to sell it.
I've attached the images from the rest of the lookbook below and let me know what you think in the comments.
