The Hackney company Buttress and Snatch recently featured prominently in a Guardian survey of the growing luxury underwear trade. Journalist Leonie Cooper writes of a "backlash against disposable fashion" and a "lingerie renaissance" which includes "a flourishing of upmarket, bijoux underwear brands."
"Rachel Kenyon fell in love with underwear thanks to her glamorous French grandmother's pink boudoir. A fashion graduate of Bristol UWE, she now runs the frilly and silly underwear label Buttress and Snatch, which has fast become a burlesque favourite. When it was founded in 1999, however, it was nothing more than a lighthearted performance-art project. "We were all about dressing up fancy and showing off," says Kenyon. "It wasn't called burlesque or anything then. It was quite a funny joke to dress up like olden-days ladies when we'd all spent years being scruffy punk rockers." Now Kenyon's flamboyant bloomers are worn by the likes of Christina Aguilera and Madonna, and over the past year Buttress and Snatch has racked up top underwear sales in Barneys department store in New York, which she attributes to the fact that "I don't scrimp on the frills and fanciness".
Kenyon admits she always has a waiting list for her showy designs: "I've never been able to keep up with making enough pants for everyone who wants them!" Kenyon's underwear is less than cheap because of her time-intensive methods and use of deluxe but ethical fabrics. "The clothing industry these days is all about mass production, globalisation, cost cutting and maximising profits rather than craftsmanship, tradition and beautiful things," she laments. She uses vintage trims and hand-clipped lace from the last real lace company in Nottingham, and all production takes place in the UK with local materials, to support the British fabric industry."
