This Beautifully Diverse "Tea Party" Shows What Lingerie Ads Could Look Like

What happens when four bloggers of all different shapes and sizes come together in one place dressed in only lingerie? Well, they have a tea party, of course. 

But, this was no ordinary tea party, where folks drink tea from teacups and nosh on tiny finger sandwiches. It was the setting for a collaborative photo series entitled “Lingerie is for Everyone to Enjoy,” an inclusive ideal shared by bloggers Sweets Nothing of Sweet Nothings NYC, Rose Wednesday of The Lingerie Addict, Elisabeth Dale of the Breast Life and Cora Harrington of The Lingerie Addict, all of whom participated in the shoot.

Read more: Aerie Gives Plus-Size Men the Underwear Campaign We’ve All Been Waiting For

“The four of us are all incredibly passionate about making the world of lingerie more accessible to all kinds of women — older women, LGBTQ women, women of color, plus size women, and so on,” Harrington said via email. 

The photo shoot was in direct response to the lingerie ads we typically see in magazines and in commercials.

“The imagery we see in lingerie (and fashion) is often exclusionary by design. It’s described as aspirational, but part of that aspiration is to be young and thin and white and straight,” she said. “If you’re not any of those things, it can feel like lingerie isn’t meant for you. So we wanted to show that the world of intimates can be accessible, no matter how you look or what your identity is.” 

“I think more people are talking about plus-sized models, but I don’t think that’s expanded to more representation in the lingerie industry,” she said. “The vast majority (including market leader Victoria’s Secret) are happily upholding the status quo.” 

More and more companies, however, are breaking that status quo. Plus-size retailer Lane Bryant, for instance, started the “I’m No Angel” campaign in response to Victoria’s Secret’s angels’ lack of body diversity. HM’s  Other Stories brand featured a “For Women, By Women” campaign showcasing a diverse set of women with tattoos, scars, birthmarks and body hair. 

Harrington knows that one photo shoot is not going to fix the lack of diversity within the lingerie industry, but she hopes it can be a start. “It was amazing to be a part of a project that’s helping, in at least some small way, to change the paradigm,” she said. “If even one person looks at the shoot and feels like lingerie is something they can now wear, then it’s worth it.”

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Here’s What People Drunk-Shop For On Friday Nights

Exorbitant heels and hundreds of dollars’ worth of lingerie: Those might not exactly be garden-variety, everyday purchases, but apparently, they’re what people snap up when filling their carts late on a Friday night. E-comm site Lyst compared online shopping habits on Monday versus Friday nights and found that bras and stilettos sell especially well at the close of a long work week, presumably after a couple of drinks, Racked reports.

Lingerie sales are 50% higher on Friday nights versus Monday nights, Lyst found. And it’s not just the quantities of lingerie ratcheting up at the end of the week, it’s the price points: average Friday-night lingerie orders are 140% pricier than Monday-night hauls ($308 and $126, respectively). Shoe sales also double in that potentially tipsy haze of the week’s end, and the shoes selected are 165% more expensive than those purchased on a Monday night.

There’s also a marked difference between spending sums overall on a “school night” versus after a night on the town: After midnight, sales are 30% higher on Fridays versus Mondays, and post-1 a.m., total TGIF-induced spending jumps up 40%. Another big late-Friday-night purchase, per Lyst: dresses. Friday night, after-midnight frock sales are 320% higher than those on Monday nights.

Do your after-hours purchases reflect shopping patterns? We’re certainly not knocking the tipsy allure of fetching new skivvies or a killer pair of shoes with the simple click of a button. But judging by the epic drunk-shopping stories we’ve gathered in the past, there are far weirder, “simply had to have it,” inebriated impulse-purchases one can make…

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