baby's on fire, better throw her in the water

All photos by Marikavera.

Lingerie is almost always sensual, but rarely conceptual. Marika Vera's diverges in this respect, serving up both eroticism and feminism in equal measure.  Her eponymous first lingerie collection was named for the 19th century novel, Venus in Furs, the story of a man who becomes enslaved to a woman.  The pieces give off the same sense of Victorian sensuality portrayed in the book (which happened to give masochism its name), and are all about simultaneously concealing and revealing, with lightly layered silk panels that open up in not-so-discreet slits.  Vera gives the wearer the entirety of the power, and her pieces are both feminine and delicate, while remaining modern, elegant, and entirely in control. Any subject would be entirely enslaved.

-Tiffany