Guest Blogger: Lingerie + Art = Love

Last weekend, my coworker and friend Marli Marinelli asked if I wanted to come with her to a lingerie art exhibit. A lingerie art exhibit! How could I turn that down? Oh right, I had a wedding doubleheader that weekend and had to start my travel that Thursday of the exhibit. Luckily, Marli was thrilled to write a post for PLU. Enjoy!

Let’s just get my lingerie confession out of the way now: on a typical day, I reach for Gap Body. Plain cotton, no adornment, no wedgies, no frills. But for the bright and shiny moments of life, I crave lingerie. The kind that looks like art. And in its most elevated form, lingerie should make your body look like art.

And on the topic of lingerie and art, I went to an exhibition last week that captured how just a few wisps of artfully arranged silk, lace, and gossamer can transform the body. My friend and talented photographer Amber Rima collaborated with stylist Britta Uschkamp and actor/playwright Lauren LoGiudice to create an intimate portrait series inspired by Greta Garbo. The photographs explore the “dark and the light of stardom through the lens of Garbo’s story. In this ambiance of glamour, solitude and privacy, they explore how the icon felt in her most intimate settings.”

I loved how the photography looked at once old world and strikingly modern. Austere yet ornate. Rippling with sensuality and ripe with the unspoken. They looked like frames from a story. And what I loved was not just the presentation of lingerie but the presentation otf the portraits, hanging from clothes rails at Prohibit NYC, the wires teasingly decorated with black satin ribbons. It’s the smallest touches that carry the most weight—and isn’t that the very spirit of lingerie?

Greta Dreams at Prohibit NYC, 152 Allen Street, NYC

First and second photos courtesy of Lena Scherer, ©2012.