Mink Stoles, Lingerie, and Chocolate: Museum of Fashion Explores the …
August 21, 2014 by admin
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Forget the smile; for women, you’re never fully dressed without the right lingerie. What clings to your frame underneath can either make or break your outfit. And to those fearless few, lingerie has even started transmogrifying from underwear to outerwear. It started with a movement blamed on Madonna and has been widely accepted and received by every horny teenager sifting through Nasty Gal’s inventory on the reg — they’re starting early these days.
Once thought as the forbidden fruit of the garment world, lingerie was sacred, and restricted to only the eyes of one’s hubby (we presume). Fast-forward to present day and behold: The rock hard bodies of Candice Swanepoel and Lily Aldridge unabashedly bathing in bejeweled, cleavage-clad Miracle bras and cheeky boy shorts, invading the mail boxes and television screens for every hubby to openly feast their eyes upon!
But before the leggy angels of Victoria’s Secret larked runways in 22-pound mega wings, guys were hootin’ and hollerin’ at Joan Crawford in a soft lace chemise in the 1950s.
See also: Miami’s Museum of Fashion: Inside Keni Valenti’s Clothes Haven
That’s right, kids. A lot has changed in the past couple decades. For Keni Valenti of Wynwood’s Museum of Fashion, the history of unmentionables and their evolution through time is well worth mentioning. The exhibition, Boudoir, (fitting title), is dedicated to the sexy vintage styles.
Valenti, a major vintage junkie, has amassed a 20,000-plus collection of couture clothing over the past 40 years. Last month, he hosted a Best of New York exhibition with guest curator Max Wilson from Parsons School of Design, and an Indian-inspired show the month before. Needless to say, the man’s got one hell of a closet.
For Boudoir, Valenti has teamed up with local prop stylist and vintage lingerie collector, Cristina Forestieri, to strip the residential bald-headed, blue mannequins all the way down to their skivvies.
“Keni has an amazing collection and I can in no way compete with it,” Forestieri says, even though she’s contributing to nearly half of the pieces displayed at the exhibition.
Valenti peeks his head out from behind the gold, metallic curtains that meet the museum’s high ceilings and mask the back stock of his collection, which is rumored to have two levels. “They call me the Wizard of Wynwood,” he says. His closet full of antique goodies is so coveted that it’s landed Valenti as one of 75 2014 Knight Foundation finalists.
Location Info
Museum of Fashion
2612 NW 2nd Ave., Miami, FL
Category: General
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Lingerie brand sues lawyer for $6M over flubbed bra patent
August 20, 2014 by admin
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Zephyrs invented the “novel kidney-shaped push-up” padding.Photo: Handout
What boobs!
A white-shoe law firm botched the handling of a patent for a bust-enlarging bra insert, allowing competitors to market knockoffs, a new Manhattan lawsuit charges.
Lingerie company Zephyrs, which invented the “novel kidney-shaped push-up” padding, is suing its former lawyer, Bernard Codd, from the international firm McDermott, Will Emery for nearly $6 million.
The Manhattan Supreme Court malpractice suit says McDermott, Will Emery “fell far short of its reputation” as a “top-tier, highly recommended law firm for drafting and filing patents.”
In 2008, Zephyrs chief Debra MacKinnon “discovered that there existed a commercial need for a soft shaping insert that is anatomically designed to conform and push up the breasts, thereby increasing volume and cleavage, while providing a natural shape,” the entrepreneur says in the suit.
Codd worked with MacKinnon in 2008 and 2009 to draft the patent claim, but he rushed the job and screwed up the wording about the inserts’ specific dimensions, according to court papers.
The patent was issued in 2012. In 2014 MacKinnon hired an independent consultant “who discovered that there were substantial errors contained within the patent as a direct result of defective legal services,” the suit says.
Images of the patents seen in courtPhoto: Handout
Specifically, Codd wrote the ratio of the thickness of the pad from the breast to the bra, and the length of the insert from the sternum to the armpit backward, according to court papers.
Codd made the mistake even though MacKinnon had provided him with a diagram accurately depicting the product, the suit says.
The “small, woman-owned company” has been working with a new firm to fix the screw-up — while giant retailers like Amazon.com and Victoria’s Secret are selling nearly identical pads for between $17 and $58 a pair, the suit says.
“Zephyrs has experienced serious harm from its inability to collect royalties under the patent as a direct and proximate consequence of the defendants’ acts and omissions,” MacKinnon charges in the civil suit.
MacKinnon says in court papers that she hired the $860-an-hour firm because she was “understandably impressed with McDermott’s substantial accolades and vast experience in patent prosecution.”
“Instead” she “received inferior legal services that fell below the degree of care, skill, and diligence commonly possessed and exercised by a member of the legal community,” MacKinnon huffs in the suit.
A spokesman for McDermott, Will Emergy said, “It is unfortunate that Zephyrs has filed this lawsuit, but we are confident that the firm will prevail.”