Gallery: Yoka Sola takes a personal touch to lingerie

Designer says fashion is your best way to communicate with people

French fashion designer Yoka Sola came to Prague seeking to fill a gap in the Czech Republic’s lingerie industry. “I always wanted to create something new, and the idea was to offer something that you couldn’t find in the Czech market: colorful sexy lingerie,” Sola says. Her aim is to offer her clients a personalized service, selling directly to clients that she has met in person and has a personal connection with.

 

“I know what they like and what they need,” says Sola, adding that if she distributed her products in a store, it wouldn’t be the same. She uses fine materials to produce individual pieces in small quantities. “More sexy, original and elegant,” are the words that Sola uses to describe her products.

When her clients get in touch with her, she organizes a private party where she presents her collection, makes the fittings and gives advice. “It’s really about the personal touch. When people are happy, they recommend you – it’s a circle of meeting people that never ends,” she said.

Like most foreign business women in Prague, Sola struggled at first because she didn’t speak the language. and had to build a network on her own. She started by joining expat groups. “You feel very lonely sometimes. It’s bad to stay on your own, you need to come out of your cocoon and interact,” she said. While most of her clients are Czechs, many of them English speakers. .

“Fashion for me is a way to exist. It’s the best way to express your creativity constantly,” she says, adding that you can express your creativity on a daily basis by changing your appearance. “It’s a way to be yourself and communicate with people,” Sola says.

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Her designs are inspired by fine and luxurious materials that she is very passionate about. “I never say underwear; I say lingerie, because it’s a part of your outfit,” she explains. Lingerie according to her is about elegance, sexiness and accessorizing. The purpose of it is to show what a woman has and about what she wants.

Her two favorite designers are Katerina Geisterova and Alexander McQueen. She likes Geisterova because she brings an image of elegance and a free woman who is soft and strong at the same time. Sola says that Geisterova is the best Czech designer.

She feels that McQueen brought something very special to fashion, a sort of anti-normality/anti-conformity. His futuristic collection had inspired the world, and even though he died 6 years ago, his vision is still present. “The best designers are the ones who still have this influence even after they are gone,” Soal says.

Sola’s fashion tips for this summer are to wear fine or light materials that feel like a second skin. She believes that plastic straps in lingerie are not elegant at all – tiny straps are much more elegant and sexy. She recommends red lingerie and other bold colors. “Wear what makes you feel good and look beautiful,” Sola says. You can contact her and see her upcoming events on her website: www.yokasola.com

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Sexy, naughty, wild: Kolkata goes kinky

Handcuffs, whips and lubricants are selling like hotcakes. And Kolkata’s kinky fetishists are licking ‘em up!

Rewind a decade. Back then, Kolkata was plain ol’ vanilla. In ice-creams, cakes, perfumes, bathing bars and yes, even in the bedroom. Life was squeaky clean. If you wanted to get dirty, you went to the Maidan and played football.

Cut to 2014, and our City of Joy is whipping up a climax. As the blindfolds come off, couples are buying sex toys, friends are throwing erotic bachelor parties, lingerie is getting kinkier and wedding cakes naughtier. Getting dirty is about ballgames in the bedroom — or the sofa, the bathroom, the kitchen… Get the drift? Come now.

Dress to thrill
Apparently, Kolkata is naughtier than metros like Delhi and Mumbai, claims Dharam Nathwani of La Lingerie. Crotchless panties and cupless/ see-through bras, apart from sex toys and vibrators, have kinky fetishists bending over backwards — or forward, if that suits your style — to get them. Nathwani says, “The sales of kinky items have gone up here, as compared to our stores in other parts of India. In the last two years, sales have shot up by 100%. People here have wild fantasies and want to turn those into reality!”

His wife, Suman Nathwani adds, “Handcuffs, whips and lubricants are our largest selling items. It’s okay to gift naughty items at weddings now. Often, my clients discuss with me the kind of daring lingerie they’d like to wear or how they like to pleasure themselves. Buying wrist cuffs, cat o’ nines, riding crops and inflatable dolls isn’t taboo anymore.”

Dare to gift
When it comes to gifts, a whole world of erotic items have opened up. So you have kinky board games, candles, glasses and clocks flying off the shelves, thanks to more and more people throwing adult-themed parties. From straws, whistles and glares to chocolates — almost everything is available in genital shapes.

Says Swati Siotia of Party Hunterz, “These items double up as party props and icebreakers. We started stocking some of the naughtiest items when their demand soared too high to be ignored. Overtly flirtatious badges, kinky games (such as roulettes with options like grab a guy’s bun) leather whips and fur handcuffs fly off our shelves.”

Not surprisingly, good ol’ Kamasutra is also finding itself under the spotlight.
Fahad Ahmed of F-Bloc shares that the Kamasutra clock is their largest selling item, closely followed by dice games which instruct you on sexual poses! “Sales of such items have shot up by 35% in the last two years. Most of my clients are youngsters. They are well-informed and know enough to pre-order such gifts from abroad if need be. Even girls do not shy away from asking for kinky gift items now.”

Whipping up a storm
There was a time when buying a cake was about choosing between stuff like black forest and butterscotch. It’s time you woke up to naughty cakes. From bachelor parties to birthdays and anniversaries, you can order for any o c c a s i o n . Coming in all sorts of suggestive shapes and sizes, they are guaranteed to up the fun quotient. Says Keshav Sethia of Krazy For Chocolates, “Earlier only boys would drop in to order such cakes. But over the last few years, we’ve seen girls coming to our store and giving detailed descriptions (often, offering pictures too) of their naughty cakes. Recently, a girl ordered an adult cake at our store, but asked me to tone it down a bit since her saas-sasur would be present at the do! On another occasion, a girl gifted a cake showing a naked couple making love, to her bhaiya-bhabhi!”

Apparently, most of these cakes are ordered during the wedding season! “We sold 50 naughty cakes in the last wedding season that lasted two months,” Keshav says, adding, “Earlier, when I had to make a naughty cake, I’d send everyone out for lunch and ask a trusted aide to stay back and help me. But now, everybody is in on the game.”

Hard reading
Yes, we all saw how the sale of erotic books shot up when a certain Christian Grey came calling. Now, according to figures provided by city bookstores, readers in all age brackets — from teens to retired people — are snapping up these books. “EL James’s series helped increase the visibility of books such as the Crossfire series and other erotic novels. Now we have a widely stocked segment on erotica and from 60-year-old bureaucrats to 20-year-old youngsters, everyone’s asking for such titles without inhibitions,” confides a spokesperson of a city bookstore. Bookstores are also stocking up on adult board games! “Two years ago, only guys would come looking for such items furtively. Now, women come in and locate these stuff themselves!” he adds. Not wondering what the wandering hands are up to, are you?

E-kink isn’t cool
The city seems to love the touchyfeely bit. Which is why online sales of kinky items have dropped from the city. Maybe because it is more easily available here now? Karan Behal of prettysecrets.com, which sells sex toys and lingerie, confirms this, saying, “Though our countrywide sales figures haven’t dwindled, Kolkata isn’t high on our list of frequent buyers. We shipped over 3,00,000 products last year, but Kolkata wasn’t among the top five cities.” Well, bring out the whips, chains and handcuffs people, we haven’t heard the safe word yet!

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