This is always a big week for Free People as festival season kicks into high gear and fans of the boho chic label start shedding layers as a matter of principle.

And if you haven’t yet finalized your outfit for Bonnaroo this weekend, there’s plenty of good news from Free People, which has expanded its intimates line and is promising 30% more styles in their 35 boutiques across the country.

It’s part of a big push over the past year to increase the brand’s profile as a go-to source for soft layering pieces — even if FP’s selection of bandeaus, crop tops, rompers and the like stretches the definition of what constitutes a lingerie collection.

Intimately Free People is all about casual comfort — at home, on a café patio or in your favorite mosh pit — and few brands have captured the effortless randomness of hippie style more effectively.

The Philly-based cousin of Urban Outfitters is also making a big marketing push for its intimates collection, and hired UK wild child Daisy Lowe to model its new goods. The Alison Williams lookalike isn’t a household name in the U.S. but the campaign will be popular in Britain, where FP launched its first international webshop last year (and where Daisy is a familiar figure in the tabloids).

(For trivia hounds, Daisy’s mom Pearl Lowe was a former model for Agent Provocateur, while dad Gavin Rossdale eventually settled down with another inner-outerwear icon, Gwen Stefani).

The best part of FP’s new push into the lingerie market is that it comes with another wonderful, romantic video (above), the second in what Free People says will be a continuing series.

‘The Neighbor’ is another urban love story along the lines of last winter’s ‘Roshambo‘ and features Daisy and Jacques Naude as neighbors who take forever to hook up. The catalyst, of course, turns out to be Daisy’s smashing FP undies.

Here are some more shots from the latest Free People campaign.

There’s an old rule of thumb in business that goes something like this: there’s always room at top. If you want your brand to stand apart from the crowd, head for the upper end of the luxury market where price is not an issue, competitors are few and customers place a premium on quality, craftsmanship and exclusivity.

It’s a business model that has worked for sports cars and fine scotch and lingerie, too: even through the recent recession, while growth stalled in the worldwide lingerie market, high-priced luxury labels boomed.

It’s also the business strategy behind Rococo Dessous, a new luxury brand whose launch last week included this headline-grabbing boast: with bra-and-panty sets going for up to $7,000 USD, Rococo instantly becomes the most expensive lingerie brand on the planet.

Sure, you can drop $2,000 or $3,000 on some couture underpinnings from Gaultier, Prada or Dolce and Gabbana. And a few premium lingerie labels that have been courting big spenders in the past few years with extravagant limited-edition garments decorated with jewels and carrying stratospheric price tags (think Agent Provocateur‘s $25,000 crystal bodysuit from 2011 or Fred and Ginger‘s $40,000 diamond set).

But those eye-popping examples were custom-order one-offs, more marketing than market-driven and designed to draw attention to the brands’ regular offerings. Rococo takes the opposite approach. Its ‘basic’ sets start at $2,500, but the sky’s the limit if you want to embellish your order with Swarovski crystals or other baubles.

Rococo Dessous’ Alexandra (top) and Cleopatra bra styles.

If you can’t quite grasp the concept of underwear that might require a mortgage (and insurance!), consider this: Rococo‘s opulent pieces are literally worth their weight in gold. Thanks to cutting edge fabric technology, the company uses a revolutionary 24-karat gold thread in its panels and in the ornate embroidery that gives the brand its name.

The idea for all-gold lingerie came to Swiss entrepreneur Sascha Hertli a couple of years ago when he was working in the private banking sector in oil-rich Qatar. Dealing with Middle Eastern bank clients, Sascha told Lingerie Talk, “I realized they are totally crazy for gold. It was in everything but fashion.”

Sascha saw a market opportunity for gold-based apparel, but didn’t think of lingerie until he moved to New York and enrolled in Columbia University’s business school and also met Breanna Lee, a former Victoria’s Secret lingerie designer. They conceived the idea for an ultra-luxe brand and developed a business plan as Sascha’s class project.

“We saw a gap in the high-end lingerie market,” he said. “The most expensive pieces in the market were about $1,500 a set. There was a gap at the ultra-luxury end, either because no one wanted it or just that no one has tried it.”

“The idea got two reactions,” he added. “Either ‘this is crazy’ or ‘this could actually work’.”

Business school became an ideal testing environment for the concept, he said, “because there were people from all different countries there so we could test how to position Rococo in different markets.”

Sascha lined up New York investors for the brand and graduated from Columbia the same day as Rococo launched last month — with a couple of former professors on board as advisors.

Rococo‘s appeal is based on a simple, timeless truth: the irresistible allure of gold. The brand offers four style ranges, each named for one of history’s most glittering and indulged women: Russia’s Alexandra, Egypt’s Cleopatra, and France’s Marie Antoinette and Francoise (wife of Louis XIV).

“Kings and queens in ancient times used to wear gold,” Sascha said. “We’re bringing it back for the modern princess.”

What made this all possible was the development in 2011 of a 24K gold thread by Swiss textile manufacturer Bischoff Textil. Gold has been used in fabrics throughout history, but typically it was delicate, hard to clean and prone to rubbing or flaking off.

Bischoff’s patented method uses a vacuum process that applies gold to a polyester base thread “on an atomic level.” The resulting thread is stable, retains the qualities of fabric and — best news yet — the gold won’t come off when the garment is washed.

And, despite their metallic composition, Rococo sets weigh “only a few grams” more than fabric undergarments, Sascha said.

Each Rococo piece is hand-crafted in New York and can be viewed at private trunk shows or sales appointments that can be booked online. The brand is currently available in boutiques in Monaco and hopes to find high-end department store distributors in New York, London, Paris and the Middle East.

While the company builds its distribution network, it’s also developing new style ranges for its next collection. Look for a gold-and-white bridal range as well as a gold-on-red edition designed to appeal to the Asian market.

Here are some more images from Rococo Dessous‘ launch last week in New York.

As a lesbian fashion designer who works for Playboy, Rebecca Szymczak understands the nuances of sexual identity better than most people.

So it should be no surprise that when Rebecca launched her own lingerie label it would be a gender-bending affair unlike anything else on the market — smart, challenging and designed to obliterate pre-conceptions of what sexy really means.

Bex NYC is quickly attracting attention for its tuxedo-inspired looks that push some sexual buttons you might not know you (or your partner) had.

With its unique aesthetic, flamboyant statement pieces and some of the cleverest marketing to hit the North American lingerie industry in years, Bex has all the markings of a surefire hit. And if seduction really is (as we suspect) all about provocation, Bex can’t miss.

“My target demo is the unapologetically sexy, empowered, confident female,” Rebecca told Lingerie Talk. “She feels good and she wants to be noticed.”

Getting noticed shouldn’t be a problem for any Bex customer sporting such pieces as their pinstriped Mister boyshort or Luxe Tux undies ensemble or — brace yourself — the wide-legged Boardroom pants with a thigh-high side slit. Some items have a 1920s gangster theme and there’s even a kinky nod to Wall Street in the Stocks and Bondage bra.

Bex hit the market earlier this year with a surprisingly full catalogue of styles that are grouped into three collections: After Hours, Black Tie Affair and Tickled.

There is nothing understated here. Each Bex range offers a number of very showy pieces, many of which adapt menswear details in unique ways — like bra straps that resemble men’s suspenders or untied bow ties, or herringbone and pinstripe patterned fabrics.

“I like the idea of taking conservative menswear and making it aggressively sexy,” Rebecca said.

The 30-year-old Rebecca graduated in fashion design from Toronto’s Ryerson University in 2005 and worked for DKNY Intimates and later Nike. When her first boss at Nike died at age 41 before realizing his dream to start his own line, Rebecca (right) was inspired to start working on her own entrepreneurial dreams.

In the meantime, she landed a plum day job that keeps her immersed in the world of provocative fashion: as creative director and director of licensed goods for Playboy Enterprises, which puts her in charge of international merchandising and trademark protection for its ubiquitous rabbit head.

She dismisses the suggestion that working for Playboy is incongruous with running a luxury lingerie label like Bex, noting that Playboy today is “all about celebrating female sexual empowerment … Women who wear the brand are doing so willingly and proudly.”

Likewise, Rebecca is careful to point out that Bex wasn’t developed specifically for the lesbian market, even though it’s earned glowing reviews in the gay press.

“It’s only relevant in that I am a woman and I’m married to a woman and have a greater understanding of the female body and an appreciation of it,” she said. “The gay community is as diverse as the straight community. I’m just designing for women, period.”

Rebecca developed the Bex catalogue over the past year with generous input from New York’s arts, fashion and theater community.

“I’m very lucky to have a lot of creative friends who would sit around and brainstorm with me,” she said.

That collaborative spirit, and Rebecca’s passion for both Madonna and the NYC glam design team The Blonds, helps explain the theatrical, almost costume-y look of many of Bex‘s high-end statement garments. There’s a side-slit pencil skirt in lace for $300 or leather for $400, and a reversible satin bolero jacket in black or merlot for $300. But the most eye-popping item is a Gaga-worthy ostrich-feather bolero coat, lined with satin, for $1,200.

Rebecca’s brainstorming sessions also produced some catchy marketing ideas and must-have fashion accessories that will help Bex build a loyal following (and invite flattering comparisons to another player in this niche, Kiki de Montparnasse).

Bex‘s most popular item, the stretch lace Fumeur panty, comes in a cigarette box, and you can even hide your Bex goodies in a Naughty Nightstand hollowed-out book ($60).

For a memorable gift idea, Bex will deliver a pantygram (above) for $35, and every month a Bex customer who submits a photo wearing the label’s goodies will be selected to join the Bex Kitten club and profiled on the company website.

Other unique accessories include a garter with a leather flask-holder, another garter with a sleeve for ID or credit cards, and a roll of Stocks and Bondage tape for fetish-night fun.

Ironically, Bex‘s signature item and the one that will put it on the fashion map probably isn’t one of its lingerie pieces or fetish-friendly accessories. Instead, it’s the Lady Rosary necklace (above), featuring a bas relief nude rising from a gold- or silver-plated cross. This won’t go over well with religious purists, but as a feminist statement it speaks volumes.

And what does it say about Bex itself? This is a label that worships women.

Bex is currently sold through its online webshop but will likely start showing up in higher-end boutiques and retail chains soon. In the meantime, here are some more images from the debut collection.

If you’re still setting sexy fashion trends at an age when most people are contemplating retirement, some people are going to question your judgment (while secretly seething with envy).

Madonna gets a lot of that, parading around in public like a woman a third her age wearing little more than her latest designer skivvies. Good for her.

Madge’s latest poke in the eye of fashion convention came last week at the Billboard Music Awards, where she hauled in three statues for the worldwide success of her MDNA tour.

She also raised eyebrows and set off a predictable tweetstorm of tsk-tsking after showing up in a daring-doesn’t-begin-to-describe-it fishnet ensemble. Yes, fishnet — the go-to costume cliché of strippers and burlesque stars everywhere.

Of course, Madonna’s wasn’t just any ordinary streetwalker ensemble. The bespoke creation from Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci included a see-through fishnet skirt, black high-waisted briefs, a fishnet bodysuit with full sleeves, garter and stockings and plenty of gold-chain bling to weigh it all down. In a word, spectacular.

Still, it’s going to take more than a shout-out from Madonna to bring fishnet out of the fashion dungeon, since it really seems to fit in anywhere except at roller derby competitions or Rocky Horror revival nights.

UK designer Kriss Soonik is up to that challenge, though: her Spring 2013 collection of lingerie and layering pieces is an all-fishnet assortment that gives the much-maligned hosiery fabric a seriously sexy makeover.

“My fascination with fishnet is not a new thing,” the Estonia native writes in her blog. “I produced the first samples about 4 years ago. But then I failed to find the right fabric. … Finding a good-looking fishnet is a difficult task. The fabric has received a tacky reputation and most of the sample materials I saw were exactly that.”

Eventually, she found a soft, high-quality fishnet in the most unlikely place — a French lace manufacturer.

The resulting collection is dramatically daring and very fashionable. (To our knowledge, only The Lake and Stars have tried using similar fabrics in some of their ensembles).

Soonik’s spin on fishnet presents several possibilities: as layering garments perfect for summer festivals; as bold beach cover-ups; as attention-grabbing clubwear; and, finally, as ridiculously provocative lingerie that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Soonik repurposes several of her most popular signature loungerie styles — such as her the Inge wrap (above), the Kristel suspender top and the Susan Motion open-back bodysuit — as fishnet pieces in this collection, and the transformation is often startling. Finally, someone has brought fishnet back to the bedroom, where it belongs. Someone alert Madonna!

Here’s a gallery showing some of what’s available in this range, which will almost certainly be one of the coolest and most inventive lingerie collections of the year. You can find them all in Kriss Soonik’s online boutique.

Cy Lauz was sure she had thought of everything in the two years of planning that led to the launch this month of Chrysalis Lingerie, the first fashion lingerie line developed for transgender women.

But she wasn’t prepared for the haters.

After nearly a year of production delays — and a blizzard of advance media coverage — Chrysalis launched its online store on May 1, offering a small but unique ‘basics’ collection of undergarments designed to address the most common anatomical challenges faced by TG women.

It should have been a triumphal moment for Lauz and co-founder Simone Tobias, two TG women who self-financed the new label while working day jobs in marketing and fashion design in New York. Instead, the launch of Chrysalis plunged them instantly into the fractious politics of the transgender community and made the label a lightning rod in the debate over what — and who — defines a transgender woman.

“The launch was bittersweet,” Lauz (right) told Lingerie Talk. “The majority of our experience has been positive, but we were caught off guard by the hate in the trans community, especially from trans feminists.”

Critics on social media complained that the size range offered by Chrysalis was too limited to accommodate larger customers, that the products weren’t attractive and that they were too expensive. One commenter on the Chrysalis Facebook page called for a boycott of the young label, while another critic posted a lengthy YouTube video in which she ravaged the new line and said her TG friends were “heartbroken” with disappointment.

Even worse, Chrysalis was accused of ignoring the diversity of their community and promoting a stereotype of TG women as lithe, shapely beauties by selling only to smaller customers with ‘natural’ proportions and womanly figures. In short, being too feminine.

“In an effort to provide lingerie for the marginalized transgender community, Chrysalis has resorted to an attitude that does nothing to challenge traditional cisgender beauty standards,” wrote a blogger named Teagan on the lesbian culture site Autostraddle. “They have created a line of bras that fit trans women who mostly fit into our traditional model of ‘beautiful woman’.”

[Note: The term 'cisgender' is used to describe normative gender identity, referring to people whose biological gender at birth matches their gender identity and expression later in life.]

For Lauz and Tobias, the critical pile-on was shocking and deflating. Especially since, as they write on their website, Chrysalis was started “to help change the dehumanizing stereotypes and biases we are subjected to as a group and community [and] symbolizes the diversity of our existence.”

“All these women took it so personally. It really disheartened me,” Lauz said. “Our whole lives (as TG women) are met with misunderstanding, so to turn around and attack people in your own community is hypocritical and really absurd.”

But Lauz and Tobias didn’t waste much time licking their wounds. Instead, they reached out to their customer base and have gone back to the drawing board to address the issues raised.

And they haven’t lost sight of the fact that most of the feedback has been supportive.

“We continue to receive orders from all over the world from our customers who love and support our brand and our mission. We continue to get daily emails even from people ‘outside’ of the trans community,” Lauz said.

“And as a brand we want to reach all corners of the world and address and try to resolve issues that effect transgender women, and to promote positive consumer education about our products.”

The Chrysalis basics collection currently includes two multi-functional garments, offered in five colors. For bottoms, they offer the truly unique T-string, a 4-in-1 garment that combines a thong with a high-waisted control top and a gaff (a rigid elastic panel which smooths out the front). Its bras are called enhancers, with pockets to accommodate a range of inserts for those women who want to increase their bust profile.

Lauz knows their size ranges — the enhancers go up to a 38D — won’t help some larger TG women with broad masculine physiques. But Chrysalis wasn’t trying to exclude anyone, she said.

“Some people took the intention of what we’ve done and turned it around to make it sound like we just cater to specific group,” she said. “They expected a larger variety of sizes and felt we ignored them. But we didn’t ignore you. It’s all we could do at the moment with our (financial) resources. Please allow us time to grow.”

Chrysalis is currently working on a relaunch of its debut line that will include more sizes and colors for its T-string and new bras with wider band sizes and smaller cup sizes. The revamped line will also included a new bikini-shape brief and some more inexpensive pieces.

The company has been running polls on its Facebook page and sends out questionnaires with all its sales orders to get customer feedback. Lauz and Tobias are also featured in two videos (above) on the Chrysalis FB page that offer a backstage look at the company and the story behind its revolutionary T-string.

They also decided to not to remove critical comments from their Facebook page in order to encourage discussion and debate.

“We’ve acknowledged the problems from the start and we’re taking it very seriously,” Lauz said. “We want people to know that we are a company that does care about them and wants to solve their problems. For us this is beyond commerce — it’s about trying to make TG women’s lives easier.”

And the public concerns about garment sizes, she noted, points to a bigger issue — how the fashion industry has ignored the needs of the growing TG marketplace.

“There is a great need for products beyond lingerie and undergarments for the trans community,” she said. “And Chrysalis is here to show the world of enterprise that investing in the trans community can be a lucrative and sound investment.”

Chrysalis originally planned to follow-up its basics line with a couture collection that promises to be more fashion-forward, more seductive and more expensive. That collection is still coming, Lauz said, but it’s been put on the backburner because “we want to make the demands of the trans community more of a priority.”

The expanded basics collection is expected to be available in the Chrysalis webshop in the fall.

In the meantime, Lauz and Tobias will also be busy building bridges and trying to promote positive messages within the TG community.

“Chrysalis is at the beginning of our journey and we are excited to be a part of a growing industry where we have the opportunity to grow along with our customer base,” Lauz said.

“For us Chrysalis has been a true community effort where we encourage our customers to voice their needs and wants. Chrysalis was created to improve the lives of transgender women all over the world and we stand by our motto … ‘Made For You, By You‘.”

Yesterday was, believe or not, the fourth annual World Goth Day, that one day in the calendar when it’s cool to celebrate all things dark and macabre without feeling like an anti-social, death-loving pariah.

Today, however, it’s back to your day jobs and time to put away the black eyeshadow and shredded leggings until next May 22 … or at least next weekend.

Which really is a shame. Goth has always been a woefully misunderstood and misrepresented subculture, one whose dour public countenance masks a creative, ever-evolving and highly energized fashion sensibility. And no, it’s not all black.

The designer lingerie community offers a number of fashion-forward choices for Goth girls, too. Some labels like Bela’s Dead and Fairy Gothmother target that niche specifically, while other industry trends — like strappy fetish garments and steampunk styles — overlap nicely into Goth and its many sub-genres.

If there’s one label, though, that deserves a showcase on World Goth Day, it’s the wonderful Australian indie Hopeless Lingerie. Melbourne designer Gaby Adamidis has been producing dark-themed collections, often inspired by horror movies, for several years now and each new offering is more ambitious and accomplished than its predecessors. Life after death, indeed.

The new collection from Hopeless mirrors the brand’s DNA perfectly — elegant mesh and bamboo silhouettes with bold minimalist lines and graphic cutouts. But there’s also a sea change happening here, literally. Hopeless is lightening up, just a little.

The new collection is called ‘As Above, So Below’ and rather than draw from ghoulish source material, Gaby was inspired by the ocean the abundance of life it contains. After researching sea myths and aquatic life, she added leather, cotton lace and New Zealand merino wool to her usual go-to fabrics of bamboo and mesh, creating geometric patterns that mimic those found in nature.

The collection includes soft bras and briefs, layering pieces and several intriguing fetish items like the Pentagram harness (above) and the leather Maja leg garters (below) that were inspired by spiny crab legs (there’s a matching harness as well). And you can tell Gaby puts a TON of thought into her efforts: this is probably the first time we’ve seen a lingerie designer reference the Euclidian algorithm called the Golden Ratio — a kind of mathematical formula for perfect geometric proportions — to explain the shapes and patterns created by her intersecting straps.

If you want to get the full effect of Hopeless Lingerie’s evolving aestethic, try the stunning ensemble shown in the main photo at the top of this post: It includes the Saga bamboo jersey cropped top and the Xanthe full-length mesh skirt over the Cleo bamboo high-waisted brief.

The result is a very contemporary look that will appeal to Hopeless’s stylish Goth devotees and a much broader base of fashion lovers as well. And there’s good news for North American fans: Hopeless was recently picked up by the Seattle-based Craft & Culture, a curated e-commerce collection of emerging designer talent.

Here’s a look at some of the pieces in ‘As Above, So Below’, which are also available from the Hopeless e-commerce site as well as its Etsy shop. (Note: Bottom two photos are from Craft & Culture‘s own lookbook to introduce the Hopeless brand to its store.)

Although materials and manufacturing have changed dramatically in the last 100 years, the actual construction of the bra hasn’t changed much at all. That’s why I began to research and look at where the future of the bra was heading.

The most basic bra has over 26 components and requires more than 30 stitching operations. Currently in the lingerie industry, consumers accept how bras are constructed, we accept the way we get measured, and we accept the components used in bras.

But maybe we should start to ask if there is another way.

One man to question the conventions of bra design is Nigel Coole, inventor of Slip-It, a new alternative to hook-and-eye closures. Although it’s been used for ages, the hook-and-eye snags on clothes in the washer, can become bent and come undone at inappropriate moments. Coole wants to bring the hook-and-eye into the 21st Century.

It’s exciting to see how the Slip-It works, like two hands linking together. One simple motion is all that’s required to do and undo; yet it locks in place when worn due the tension placed upon it. It’s fully adjustable, moves with your body and can be used on lingerie or swimwear.

I asked Coole to modify one of my bras with his innovation so I could try it first-hand. Indeed, it is easier to do up and take off — no more doing the bra up in front and swiveling it around (a convenience that would be very helpful for elderly women).

What struck me about the Slip-It was that instantly you know whether you are wearing the right bra size. It has been widely reported that 85% of women wear the wrong size bra, which is usually too big in the back.

With the Slip-It fastener is used, when a bra is worn too tight won’t lie flat; and if it’s too loose, the tension won’t be there to hold the bra in place. Could this be a way for women to master a correctly fitted band? Here’s a video that shows how easy it is to use:

It’ll be interesting to see which designers, high streets or manufactures embrace and lead the way with the changes going on the industry. Coole has been trying to interest manufacturers in Slip-It for a couple of years now, and when I spoke to him he seemed to be in a Catch-22: one company said they’d take if the other one did too; but so far no-one has made the jump.

For me, I simply couldn’t wait to try this innovative concept. I wait in hope that the industry is prepared to continually update the bra to protect our natural assets.

For further information about the Slip-It please visit www.coolesolutions.co.uk.

Laurie van Jonsson is a UK lingerie designer and author of How To Become A Lingerie Designer (2012). Her new book, Anatomy Of A Bra, will be published in June. Learn more at www.laurievanjonsson.com.

Bridesmaid thank-yous all done? Check. Honeymoon luggage packed? Check. Long weepy talk with mom dad? Check.

One last shag with my secret f-buddy? Check!!

If that sounds like your last-minute wedding to-do list, you’re Agent Provocateur‘s kind of bride.

In a new promotion, the saucy UK lingerie brand is offering wardrobe suggestions for “a night of unspeakable naughtiness” on a bride’s “last night of freedom.”

The kit includes about $2,400 in racy goodies, including a sleek LBD, a Lacy bra and suspenders from AP’s current season, and a patent leather paddle for one last pre-marital spanking. Oh, and a black garter with an inscription that reminds you that “sexy never takes a day off.”

The “Last Night of Freedom” assortment is one half of AP’s newest promotion that caters to “two sides of the bride”. In contrast, its wedding day selection is a classier mix, featuring a classic dressing gown and a pair of feathery mules.

Agent Provocateur just loves to push buttons when it comes to erotic behavior, and this promo pokes fun at couples’ fears of a sexual Continental Divide that separates your single years from an endless future of wedded bliss.

But the company doesn’t really come right out and suggest that infidelity should be part of your wedding preparations.

The “Last Night” set is also recommended for bachelorette parties and, to keep the post-nuptial spark alive (and your groom in line), AP says that spanking paddle is “also appropriate for honeymoon adventures.”

Yes, Virginia, there IS fun after marriage.

[Photos show selections from AP's various bridal offerings: Birthday Suit (top), Zsi Zsi (above), and Darla (below).]

You know you’re onto something good when people are willing to pay for your product, sight unseen, based on the idea alone.

That’s the unique situation facing Knix Wear, a new fashion underwear line out of Toronto.

Knix won’t actually launch its debut line until next month, but it’s already generating a lot more than just buzz: over 150 future customers have contributed $16,000 so far toward Knix’s Indiegogo.com crowdfunding campaign that kicked off two weeks ago. The company is hoping to raise $40,000 by June 1 to pay for the manufacturing costs of that first collection.

In return, Knix’s early adopters will be the first to try out its patented collection of multi-tasking ‘solutions’ garments: leak-proof, odor-resistant undies with a fashion edge.

With a killer brand name and an inspiring trademarked slogan — ‘Changing Underwear For Good‘ — Knix will be the newest player in an emerging market niche aimed at helping women deal with messy situations like incontinence, leaky periods and sweating. (We wrote about another brand in this category, Dear Kate, last year.)

Knix takes the concept of underwear ‘solutions’ to a new level with three product lines: a basic, everyday collection called Knix, the luxury fashion line Knixy, and a high-tech sports line aimed at the gym and yoga crowd called FitKnix.

“A lot of things have evolved with technology, but we felt underwear hadn’t,” Knix founder Joanna Griffiths told Lingerie Talk. “We want to give women solutions to make every day easier.”

Knix is aimed primarily at the estimated 20 million women in North America who experience incontinence and bladder control problems. But there’s an even bigger audience that could involve as many as one in three women over 20: anyone who experiences stress incontinence — occasional leaking triggered by coughing, sneezing, laughing or any activity that puts sudden pressure on the bladder.

Griffiths, a 29-year-old bride-to-be, learned about stress incontinence four years ago from her mother, a doctor with four children.

After working in marketing an PR throughout her 20s for the CBC, Universal Music and the Toronto International Film Festival, Griffiths headed to Paris in 2011 to do an MBA at INSEAD. The business concept for Knix evolved from her studies and helped her win the school’s $20,000 women’s entrepreneur prize in 2012.

Although incontinence is often associated with aging, Griffiths’ research showed otherwise. She spent the better part of a year reading medical journals, talking with the National Association for Continence, and reaching out to urologists and gynecologists.

“The reality is that it affects new moms, women who work out, and there’s a correlation with menopause,” she said. And most women, embarrassed by the problem, suffer in silence.

“So many women don’t talk about it. Only one in 12 have the courage to talk to a doctor and by then they’ve been dealing with it for 5 or 10 years.”

Most products on the market to help women cope are aimed at people 65-and-over, for whom incontinence can be a chronic problem often requiring surgical treatment.

In developing Knix, Griffiths was aiming for an everyday product that wouldn’t look out of place in any women’s lingerie drawer. That meant sleek silhouettes and fashion-sensitive materials; it also meant hiring Kris Goojha, a veteran New York lingerie designer who had worked for such brands as Nordstrom and Victoria’s Secret.

“Even if you are dealing with incontinence, women still want to feel beautiful, they want to feel sexy, they want to feel comfortable,” she said.

From a technology standpoint, Knix products combine an absorption layer and a moisture-wicking layer that are heat-sealed around the edges, along with 100% cotton gusset. Antimicrobial silver threading helps eliminate odors and offers a natural alternative to chemical fabric treatments.

Knix will ship orders from its Indiegogo pre-sale in July and launch its e-commerce store on June 1.

Once the first inventory has arrived, Griffiths and her team begin working on new product lines and reaching out to midwives, pelvic floor physiotherapists and other professionals who routinely encounter women dealing with incontinence. The company also hopes to place its products in fitness boutiques, yoga studios and maternity shops, and has designed attractive, compact packaging to make it easy for retailers to showcase the brand.

Here’s a situation that will be painfully familiar to many of our readers in the lingerie industry:

You spent years in fashion school honing your skills and another six months developing the debut collection for your own label. But despite all the pre-launch buzz among your own circle of friends, you had a hard time generating press interest and few customers to show for all your hard work.

What happened to that WWD profile or the phone call from Macy’s or the celebrity placement on Lady Gaga — all of which you surely deserved?

It wasn’t for lack of trying. You sent out press releases, told everyone you knew on Facebook, invited bloggers to a champagne lunch and watched Google hoover up your cash with a short-lived ad campaign. What did you do wrong?

It’s a situation that Alle Fister (above) has seen many times.

“A lot of startup brands want to be all things to all people,” the founder of Bollare Communications told us. “Their marketing strategy is like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It’s destined to fail. They are working really hard, but not smart.”

The L.A.-based Bollare is a public relations agency serving over 100 fashion labels. It’s also one of a handful of PR firms that have developed a special expertise in helping lingerie brands — especially newcomers — get noticed in a crowded industry with innumerable niches.

Now 31, Fister got her start at ShopBop, the Wisconsin-based designer fashion e-commerce site. When ShopBop was bought by Amazon seven years ago, she set up her own PR consultancy and began seeking clients “who have a story worth telling.”

“Lingerie was always a personal favorite category of mine,” she said. Bollare Communications quickly built up a client list that included many distinctive U.S. lingerie independents such as Only Hearts, Eberjey, Jenna Leigh, Red Daisy and the celebrity-powered IntiMint and BeachMint brands.

Marketing a lingerie brand is a lot different than anything else in fashion, Fister said. Too many brands focus their marketing only their product details, and the results are often clumsy, misdirected and ineffective.

“Lingerie has to make you feel good from the inside out. It’s all about selling the lifestyle and the aesthetic,” she said. “It’s marketing on a more personal level.”

Successful PR for lingerie brands comes down to one thing, she says: telling stories that engage customers. She offers these three keys for developing an effective PR strategy:

1. Know Thyself
Yes, Socrates’ famous advice holds true in lingerie marketing, too. Having a clear sense of your brand identity is vital, Fister said.

She likes to begin her PR consultations by asking new clients to describe themselves in “one punchy sentence that says who you are and what you are about.”

“There are so many wonderful brands in this space, and our job is to get their story out there,” she said. “But to do that I need to know what makes their brand tick, what makes them unique in the marketplace. Unless you know those things, it’s going to be a pretty ineffective campaign.”

“And being a copycat can’t be your punchy sentence.”

2. Set Clear Goals
Brands need to have a clear sense of who they want to reach — and there’s no single cookie-cutter answer here.

Some labels want mostly to pull customers in to their e-commerce sales platform, while others aim to get picked up by big retailers like Bloomingdale’s. Even within the retail market there are numerous avenues to pursue: do you want to mix with youth streetwear sellers like Anthropologie or Urban Outfitters or high-priced luxury retailers like Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom? Fashion department stores like Macy’s or high-volume, low-margin juggernauts like Walmart or Target?

Each situation requires a different PR approach. “You need to know what your end sales goal is, and who you are trying to reach,” Fister said. “Knowing your goal will help you decide what your marketing strategy should be.”

3. Use The Right Tools
In the digital media age, there are innumerable tools and technologies for connecting with consumers. Not all of them will be suited to your needs.

Social media marketing “skews younger” for obvious reasons, Fister said, while traditional print campaigns are still a strong way to build overall brand awareness. And getting a coveted “placement” on a fashionable celebrity — the holy grail for many fashion brands — opens doors with luxury retailers.

A lot of lingerie brands “don’t stop to think what will work best for them,” Fister said.

For an example of how this tailored approach to lingerie PR can work, she points to Jenna Leigh Lingerie, a young New York-based luxury brand with a quality reputation and a growing presence in the bridal lingerie market. When Bollare’s team met with Jenna to assess her needs, it was clear she knew exactly what she wanted — to get her lingerie line into Bloomingdale’s.

To achieve that, Bollare focused on placing Jenna Leigh pieces with stylists working for major fashion magazines, “to show Bloomingdale’s that if we get a purchase order, this is the kind of marketing support you can expect.”

They targeted magazines like Cosmo and Glamor that are favored by the same fashion-forward, trend-conscious consumers that Jenna Leigh was trying to reach. Here are some of the results; and yes, Jenna now counts Bloomie’s among its growing network of distribution partners.

Jenna Leigh worn by Jessica Biel (top) in W magazine;
and in a Cosmopolitan fashion feature (above).

(How precise is this kind of approach? Fister points out that a similar engagement for an entirely different New York brand, Only Hearts, involved a different print audience with a broader focus, targeting magazine placements in Vogue, Elle and Harper’s.)

All of this sounds fine for national brands with many distribution channels and big marketing budgets, but what’s a cash-strapped independent to do? Many lingerie labels in that category, fueled by a DIY approach to entrepreneurship, try to manage their own PR with mixed results. But it’s possible to outsource professional PR on a budget, Fister insists.

“A lot of times people figure they can’t even talk to (us),” she said. “But we can provide different scopes of focus. I’d rather partner with you at the beginning and grow together with time.”

One of Bollare’s latest success stories involves one such partnership with the Canadian indie Fortnight Lingerie. Fortnight was a tiny one-person operation when it debuted three years ago, but when its first pro bono video went viral overnight, the young label was thrust into the international spotlight.

Staff from Bollare’s New York office sat down with Fortnight’s young team last year and realized “it was a real fashion brand for real fashion consumers,” Fister said. More importantly, it had a good story worth telling.

In Fortnight’s case, the company’s goal was to increase its presence among boutique retailers across North America. To achieve that, Bollare and Fortnight set out to boost the label’s profile among consumers by sharing its story through social media, outreach to bloggers and connecting with traditional fashion media.

“We have great relationships with strong retailers that understand and support our brand, but getting the retailer is not enough to have the sales of a brand grow,” Fortnight V-P Greg Denny told Lingerie Talk. ”A brand must reach out to the customer on the floor who is buying the product. And the only way to accomplish that is to have product buzz outside of the store.”

“Bollare instantly understood our brand, and every day they reach out to publications and press about our product,” he added.

“Bollare has an entire team that works on Fortnight. They have a showroom where they’re able to expose our brand to the press with an upfront and tactile experience.  They have an office in New York and L.A., and they have thousands of contacts and trusted relationships. This is something we could never acquire without them.”

Fortnight has earned coveted status as a press darling in a few short years. Its creations have enjoyed several plum magazine editorials in both Canada and the U.S. and, for such a small brand, Fortnight has built up a strong social media following that includes over 10,000 Facebook friends, 3,400 Instagram subscribers and 2,500 Pinterest followers. Here are some examples of how Fortnight’s story has captivated the fashion press:

Fortnight Lingerie featured in (from top) Flare, Fashion and InStyle magazines.

After starting out as a “basement business” in 2010, Fortnight is now widely distributed in stores across North American, and widely admired by the fashion media for sleek, sporty, well-crafted designs. And some of its success is directly attributable to its decision to seek outside PR help, Denny said.

“The cost of working with a PR agency is a commitment, but well worth the return on investment,” he said. “I don’t actually think of Bollare as an outside company that we pay for PR. I think of Bollare as one of the departments within our company.”

Bollare offers three areas of PR support for lingerie brands: traditional media, digital media and celebrity placements.

Asked to sum up the basics of a successful PR strategy, Fister offered this simple formula: “Be definiitive about what your goals are, find someone with niche expertise in that space, and work with them relentlessly to achieve that goal.”