A Controversial New Ad Shows Female Tech Founders And CEOs Coding In …

With its brand-new Ada Collection – named after Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer -underwear company Dear Kate is taking a rather non-traditional approach to advertising.

The lookbook for the lingerie line shows six prominent women in tech posing with computers and code and wearing nothing but their underwear.

The photos are meant to be empowering, complete with quotes from the women about their roles in the tech industry.

Dear Kate founder and CEO Julie Sygiel said she intentionally placed the models in the workplace. The shoot took place in Refinery29′s New York City headquarters.

“I think a lot of traditional lingerie photo shoots depict women as simply standing there looking sexy. They’re not always in a position of power and control,” Sygiel said to TIME. “In our photo shoots it’s important to portray women who are active and ambitious. They’re not just standing around waiting for things to happen.”

But some people have found the campaign offensive, with feminists arguing that the photos place emphasis on looks in an industry that is already fraught with sexual abuse and misogyny.

“Posing in your underwear undermines the message that you aim to be taken seriously as a technologist,” Elissa Shevinsky, CEO of Glimpse Labs, said to TIME.

On the other hand, Skillcrush cofounder and CEO Adda Birnir said she didn’t think twice when Dear Kate asked her to participate in the photo shoot.

“I think its an amazing company that has a truly integrated, feminist point of view and I wanted to help support them in everything they do,” Birnir said to Business Insider.

She says the controversy is interesting and surprising, adding that it creates a conversation that is important to have.

“I think the thing is that all women have bodies and wear underwear and have to deal with all the mundane as well as cultural/political things that come with walking around in a female body,” she said. “We aren’t either women who pose in underwear or women who code or women who are attractive or women who are unattractive or women who are sexual or women who are CEOs. We are all the things at once, and it’s confusing and messy and complicated and often annoyingly at issue, but not dealing with all those different facets isn’t a viable solution.”

Rebecca Garcia, founder of Geek Girl Web, didn’t expect the shoot to be so controversial.

“I think highlighting women and their careers, their background stories like Dear Kate has done is important for women to see others like themselves that they can relate to,” she said to Business Insider. “ It’s body positive and inspiring and I’m excited to be a part of the lookbook.”She says that discrimination is a very common occurrence in her industry.

“I’m friends and acquaintances with several women who have been affected by sexism in tech,” she said. “I have faced discrimination, ageism, not being taken seriously as a programmer, and I think this shoot helps to normalize the idea that women can be comfortable in their own skin and be in technology.”

Birnir sees the campaign as just one step in a process to achieve gender equality in tech.

“I don’t think any one thing can fix anything.We need more women in C-level positions. More women starting companies. More women making millions. More women in office. More empowered images of women wearing lingerie,” she added. “I just think that the answer isn’t to deny that as women we have female bodies that are beautiful and to be celebrated in addition to our brains.”

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Russians Get Around Law Banning Lingerie by 3D Printing it

Lingerie lovers in the Eurasian Union rejoice! Your next pair of sexy undies may be on the way to you thanks to 3D printing.
German lingerie brand Lascana turned to 3-D printing to circumvent a  Eurasian Union law that prevented the production or import of lace garments.

The folks at Lascana commissioned Russian designer Victoria Anoka to design the underwear. After completing her designs, Anoka turned to Moscow-based 3-D printing company, 3DPrintus, for printing.  She came up with a two-piece bra and panty set made entirely from nylon.

The undies’ design features shells and pearls. After an rigorous four-month testing period, the undies were ready to be put on display. They debuted at this month at Geek Picnic, an annual science and technology fair, which we covered yesterday, that takes place in St. Petersburg. Anoka’s designs will be available on Lascana’s website starting in November. The set comes in white, so that purchasers can get creative and paint the underwear the color they desire. The underwear is expected to cost around $80 when it goes live on the site.

Managing director of Lascana, Ksenia Shilkina, said that 3-D printing wasn’t just about finding a loophole to evade a seemingly absurd law. He said it was also about showing the potential of 3-D printing. “We are opening the future through the use of promising technology like 3-D printing. It’s amazing, and we were the first in Russia to demonstrate that you can ‘print’ underwear with a printer,” he said.

In July, a poorly worded directive from the governing body of the Eurasian Union, a European Union-like trade coalition of former Soviet states Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, banned the import, production and sale of synthetic lace underwear.

The law was supposed to be helpful, banning the use of low-quality synthetic fibers because they aren’t “hygroscopic”  enough, which means they don’t allow the skin to breathe like they should. Instead, the law outlawed all underwear made of non-natural material that didn’t meet a six percent absorption threshold.

Since that time, those who like frilly underwear have had to go without. Eurasian Union women have not been happy about this new law and have taken to occasional protests. Although these undies may not be the most comfortable, they certainly are stylish, and if they allow women a bit more freedom from an overbearing law, then that’s a plus as well.

Let’s hear your thoughts on this crazy law, and what one fashion designer did to circumvent it, in the 3D printed underwear forum thread on 3DPB.com.

 

[Source: MoscowTimes.com]

 

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