Good Night Gilda: Luxury Lingerie for the Busty Gal
Yep, I don't really write about lingerie that caters to fuller-chested women because quite frankly, I have no idea what that feels like. But I had to write about Good Night Gilda, created by Whitney Galitz in Los Angeles, because it's impeccably made. I'm all about quality—"high-end" and "luxury" to me don't just mean high prices, it's also about craftsmanship. And in Good Night Gilda, it's definitely there. Whitney is a vintage lingerie conoisseur with a theater and art background. Pair that with her career as a shopper and stylist, and BOOM: lingerie that will make you want to watch black and white movies all afternoon. While you're wearing it. And possibly eating chocolate. Whatever, just read what Whitney had to share about how she got started and why she created Good Night Gilda. Okay, bye!
"I launched it back in August officially. I did a soft launch in February a year ago and I actually walked CURVE in February last year just to get a feel for the industry and to see where my niche would be, where my voice would be for this collection. ‘cos I’ve had this idea for awhile now. My background personally is I’m a shopper and I’m a stylist back in L.A. I’ve been working in the Hollywood industry for 8 years now, dressing celebrities, working with custom designers and I absolutely love it, but being there in the shopping world and really understanding the retail industry from my perspective, I realized there was a quite a lack in good lingerie that catered to a little bit curvier of a body, a higher cup size, more full cups and I really wanted to fill that niche.
I have a costume background, my major in college was art and theater design. So I always loved the costume feel and wanted to bring the drama of that world to a high-fashion lingerie line. So that’s what I’m trying to do here with my brand. It’s a high-fashion kind of vintage inspired edgy line and it marries all those together. And it happens to cater to full cup sizes ‘cos also I’m my own customer. I grew up wearing a D cup and on a smaller frame, it’s really hard to shop for lingerie. There just isn’t really a lot of stuff out there. That was part of the motivation as well.
I only use high-end fabrics; that’s something that I have a love for, good textiles. This [Gilda romper] is silk charmeuse stretch, it’s the reverse side but it has that quality of the charmeuse in it so you can really feel it. So once you see it, you can see the luxury in it. But it’s simple and that’s what I love. I really want my designs to speak through the design aspect and not all the frills. So I use really high-end fabrics, really good quality manufacturing—it’s all made locally in Los Angeles which is really important to me. We’re a big supporter of small businesses and local economies, so that’s something I knew I would do from the beginning.
For my first collection I kinda went with a very old school, kind of Golden Era of Hollywood kind of feel using like vintage colors—this nude is a very old looking color—it’s something I wanted to convey. The big inspiration for this collection was the screen sirens, like the Rita Hayworths and the Ingrid Bergmans, Marilyn Monroe.
For fall, I was so inspired by the ‘60s era of film, like dark moody, James Bond girls—I got stuck watching all these James Bond movies—and then I was like, oh yeah, Gypsy Rose Lee!—which was what the collection was named after, it’s called the Gypsy Rose Collection, and I just went into this darker burlesque sixties film noir type look. So it’s a lot darker and moodier, and it’s a lot of fun. Sexy but sophisticated, that was the angle I was trying to go for."
