Cocktails, Lingerie, and Museums: The Best Milan Has to Offer
September 19, 2014 by admin
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Photo: Matt Hranek
Better start brushing up on your Italian, because Milan fashion week starts today. Of course the shows and parties are the main attraction, but Milan is a city whose charms are hidden beneath the surface, so you need someone who can point you in the right direction. We asked for some travel advice from––who else?––the editor in chief of
Condé Nast Traveler, Pilar Guzmán, who happens to be an expert on the Italian fashion capital. (Guzmán even created an Insider’s Guide to Milan that will be passed out during shows this year.) Here are some of her tips, tricks, and travel stories.
Where are your favorite places to eat, shop, visit, and stay in Milan? Why?
Stay: Four Seasons for the historic beauty of the hotel and the courtyard; The Armani Hotel for the bar area and the quick trip home after a few cocktails; The Bulgari for the outdoor space.
Eat: Carlo e Camilla for the raw drama of the industrial space; and Cantina Piemontese for a perfect Milanese.
Shop: Casa del Bianco for old-school linens. It’s one of those historic, only-found-in-Italy kind of shops that speaks to Italy’s national allegiance to quality and tradition.
Any tips for first-time travelers going to Milan during fashion week?
Book dinner reservations in advance!
Best-kept secret about Milan?
The numerous palazzi that have been turned into museums, like Casa-Museo Boschi Di Stefano and the incredible modern art collection.
What’s in your suitcase when you travel to Milan?
A stacked heel that won’t slip through the cobblestone cracks!
Favorite item you’ve ever bought in Milan?
A cotton camisole that I bought 10 years ago (and that has never lost its shape) from one of those anonymous lingerie shops where every item is on display in the window. The quality of the undergarments and hosiery is unparalleled.
Can you share a story about your first time traveling to Milan?
The summer after a semester in Florence, I spent a couple of weeks sleeping on my uncle’s ex-boyfriend’s couch, nursing a breakup. I would set out in the morning by foot, visiting museums, churches, and shops by day, and would return at night. The underrated beauty and vitality of the city was the best cure for heartbreak.
Can you tell us about the Insider’s Guide to Milan (the map) that you created for fashion week this year?
The impetus behind the maps came from real-life experience: You find yourself sometimes outside of the city center during shows with an hour to kill and no idea where to go. We polled our most discerning Milanese on where they eat, shop, drink, and detour during the busiest of weeks. The lesson is that you don’t need a day—in fact, sometimes it takes only 10 minutes—to experience something magical in a city.
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This Company Is Fighting the Stereotype That Only Women Can Wear Lingerie
September 19, 2014 by admin
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Every holiday season, the Angels of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show gallantly spread their wings on the runway for a national TV audience. Who’s to say a man couldn’t don a lace bra and panties and feel just as confident and sexy?
It’s an assumption rooted in rigid, age-old gender roles dictating what men and women should wear, both in public and in their own beds. And while women have made some inroads with more gender-neutral intimate apparel, you won’t find lacy lingerie designed for men in any department store.
Enter HommeMystere, a Brisbane, Australia-based online store and design studio whose sole mission is to make lingerie that’s “fun, unique and comfortable” for men. In the process, the company and the men who model for them are challenging some of our most entrenched gender stereotypes.
Brent Krause, owner and lead designer for HommeMystere, launched the brand roughly five years ago, more out of personal need than for business reasons. As a man who appreciates and likes wearing lingerie with his wife, Krause couldn’t find anything that looked or felt quite right for him. So he struck out into the male lingerie market on his own.
“I never set out to challenge anyone or anything,” he told Mic, noting that many prospective customers often ask if he specifically caters to queer or gender nonconforming people. “I just wanted to make lingerie that would fit the physique of a guy.”
In the years since its founding, HommeMystere has grown from one couple’s side project to a global business with a large client base in the United States, Krause said. The company now has distributors and agents shipping the apparel all over the world, even offering a discreet shipping option for customers from more conservative or heteronormative cultures.
“While our research indicates many wives and girlfriends are comfortable … we do receive correspondence from guys who explain to us that while they like their lingerie, their partners do not approve,” Krause said. “Some social media comments from women include suggestions that they would leave their partner if they discovered he wore lingerie. I think this says more about her than it does about him, but helps explain why some of our customers want some discretion.”
By and large, both the makers and clients celebrate and affirm men wearing lingerie. The brand’s smooth and revealing aesthetic has even attracted acclaim within the intimates industry, having been featured at numerous trade shows including the 2013 International Lingerie Show in Las Vegas.
Talk about a new crop of “angels” wearing hot panties.
HommeMystere could jumpstart a movement, challenging stereotypes while signaling that there is nothing wrong with men, regardless of their sexuality, who enjoy wearing lingerie. In one letter Krause received, a happy customer said he ordered three sets of lingerie based on customer testimonials alone. The fit, quality and comfort alone, he said, were enough to impress his girlfriend.
“Opening it was like Christmases of old. As I took each item out of the bag, I was presented with a beautiful array of colors and textures,” the customer said, according to Krause. “Please continue to inspire the more broad-minded of this world. Perhaps even become mainstream, although perhaps not in my lifetime.”
Of course, the concept of men and male-bodied individuals wearing clothing originally intended for women, otherwise known as cross-dressing, isn’t anything new. Look no further than the steady integration of drag culture into the mainstream. Underwear fetishes have been known among men for many decades, where they enjoy wearing bras, panties, stockings and even heels.
Krause said he hopes guys wearing lingerie will eventually become more acceptable in the public eye, even if he’s not around to see it happen. His company, with its honest and respectful business model, can’t hurt. Krause and men like him are establishing both a trend and a safe space, where men are free to explore fashion and intimate apparel free of society’s many insidious, gendered hangups about the clothes we wear.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if a mainstream department store stocks a line of lingerie-style briefs sometime in the near future,” he said. “It would be adventurous, but I think someone will take a chance sooner rather than later.”
It’s probably safe to say Brent Krause is not alone.
(h/t Fusion)