Lady Unmentionable: Where to find slips

Can you recommend any places to buy slips, I too suffer from the garter belt showing slightly through clothes ? X

- Lorraine (Via the Playful Promises Facebook)

For those not in the know, a slip is an undergarment worn between lingerie and clothing, helping clothing hang more smoothly, creating a desirable shape. The slip offers many benefits such as preventing certain fabrics irritating the skin, protecting finer fabrics from perspiration and also offering warmth to the wearer.

In the 1920’s slips were introduced as an alternative to corsets, fitting in with the looser fashion of the time as well as freeing up metal to be used for the production of essentials for World War l. Obviously the slip isn’t getting as much praise as it deserves; not only did it allow women a new form of freedom, but helped the war effort!

As Lorraine has mentioned, wearing a slip does wonders for smoothing down what I call "garter bumps" when wearing tight-fitting clothing. Not only that but it's a sexy little piece of lingerie in itself!

Playful Promises currently offers a few slips on sale, including gorgeous silk chemises in jade and lilac, which both come with matching panties. If you'd also like a little bit of a quirky update to the traditional slip, why not go for the Lyla Playsuit in Black or Blush?

If that doesn't tickle your fancy, slips and teddies are available from a variety of retailers on the internet, some of our favourites include Kiss Me Deadly and Ayten Gasson!

Also, if you happen to be popping by the Playful Promises Boxpark boutique make sure you also visit Brick Lane with its cute vintage shops and grab yourself an authentically vintage bargain!

Introducing.... Shop Desh!

Playful Promises is ecstatic to announce that we are now a featured brand on the amazing new lingerie bible of a website that is Shop Desh! 

Shop Desh is the brainchild of Erinn Brown (previously of fab blog The Bare Intimates, which is soon to be merged with the new platform) who wants to make lingerie shopping as stress free as possible for any woman. Shop Desh is not only a massive lingerie database, including everything you could need or want in your underwear drawer, but everything on the website has been carefully selected so you only get the best products different brands have to offer! In this way, the website can be a little dangerous – as you end up wanting every beautiful item you spot!

Shop Desh caters for various sizes and the seach function makes it so easy for you to find what you are looking for; you can search for an item by size (from 32A to 40F or XS – XL), colour or brand. You can even refine your search further and search for an item by price or sex factor (LOVE IT)! It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

Shop Desh carries an amazing array of both British and international lingerie designers, including: Huit, Freya, Affinitas, Chantelle and Marlies Dekkers so is a great way to introduce yourself to some new brands and to continue to support your old favourites!

Here at Playful Promises we are so excited to see this grow and expand into the number one lingerie database! So pledge your allegiance to Shop Desh and Playful Promises!

Let us know if you have used Shop Desh and what you think of it!

Time for Tea: The Tea Dress

We all know us British love a good old cup of tea; it has become a miracle elixir prescribed by every English person in every conceivable circumstance that you could think of, curing anything from a bump on the head to a broken heart. So, with this in mind it is no wonder that an entire culture developed around tea, which was embraced whole-heartedly by our nation of tea-lovers and is still, in some form part of our culture today!

The origins of the Tea Dress is inextricably linked to the fashion of Afternoon Tea, which was a tradition believed to have been started by Anna Maria Stanhope, the seventh Duchess of Bedford in 1841. At the time, lunch was served at midday and dinner was then served at 8 or 9o’clock at night, so the clearly starving Duchess began having tea and other nice little titbits brought to her private chambers at about 4o’clock.

When Anna’s habit became public knowledge the craze of taking Afternoon Tea spread like wildfire throughout the upper classes in England and soon ladies across the land would dress up in their finery and visit each other’s houses to have a good old natter over a cuppa (not at all different to today!).

Well, with a new social craze, a new wardrobe was essential – hence the Tea Dress! Any excuse to enlarge our wardrobes! Etiquette books at the time contained entire chapters devoted to the proper etiquette of Afternoon Tea and the Tea Dress was created to be worn at such events.

The Tea Dress started life as a garment made solely for informal entertaining within the home. The main characteristics of the Tea Dress were unstructured lines and light fabrics that was easy to put on, creating a comfortable dress that was easy to manoeuvre in. Originally, Tea Dresses were inspired by the Orient and Asian clothing and the kimono was a primary source of inspiration for the design. The dresses were not worn with corsets, and so were a form of liberation for the women of the time with the beginnings of a slightly more relaxed style of women’s clothing.

Clearly, Afternoon Tea became a setting for the new freedom advancing both women’s clothing and their place in society.

Afternoon Tea slowly began to take on some rather raunchier connotations as the French christened it ‘le fif-ó-clock’ or ‘four to five’, becoming an acceptable time in which a lady could entertain her lover in the knowledge that her husband would agree not to enter the drawing room in that hour. Oh la la.

The Tea Dress became an essential part of any self-respecting, fashionable woman’s wardrobe and became a way for a lady to express her tastes. They were luxurious, loose and floaty often accessorised with parasols, fans, fur, handbags and jewels, to fully portray status and wealth to any observers.

Tea dresses have of course altered slightly during the course of history to become shorter, however the loose skirt and fitted bust harkens back to the original Victorian style. 

Here at Playful Promises, we think that Tea Dresses are too gorgeous to only be worn indoors! So strut your stuff in our offerings of the Abstract Print Tea Dress and the Vintage Floral Tea Dress and show us how you accessorize to entertain ;)

All About Aztec

If there's one thing I love about Summer, despite all the sunshine and cocktails in the garden, it's seeing gorgeous printed patterns everywhere!

But why stop there? I see stylish girls rocking these prints all year round! While the Summer prints tend to be in either pastel or neon colourways, we can see darker colours pushing through for Autumn.

Playful Promises have brought out a stunning aztec print that is already available on a skirt and dress and will soon be cropping up in their resort (perfect for those going away on holiday this winter) collection swimwear, which you can see a sneak preview of here!

I love how this print reminds me just enough of Summer, with touches of colour inbetween the bold black and white geometric shapes. 

Seems I'm not the only one that loves a good aztec print! Check out how these celebs rock the trend!

Jessie J

 Beyonce

 Kim Kardashian

Psst! Grab yourself 20% off Playful Promises Clothing with code "CLOTHES123" until 19/9/12!

Anatomy of a Heart

The decor at Lounge Lover, where we had some drinks a few weeks ago - fits so well with our AW12 collection!

It seemed quite fitting that when the PP team went out for a drink we were sat right next to the amazing old anatomy posters, seen above! Why? Our current collection for AW12 is called "Anatomy of a Heart", inspired by the colours and shapes inside the human body. 

The collection was first born after Emma took a trip to the Wellcome Collection and the Hunterian Museum; whose halls are lined with anatomical, zoological and pathological specimens. We all know love and passion is a key theme in lingerie, but it was time to delve a little deeper - literally!

Anatomical drawings inspired the rich reds, purples and blues featured in the collection. While you may find all this rather squeamish, it is interesting to remember that the study of anatomy is one of the most historically rich sciences, and without it... well, can you imagine?!

The Love set is inspired by muscles and tendons, with our classic hand-stitched detail re-created in a deep pulsating red. 

True Love and Juliette, colours of blood after and before oxygenation.

One of the prints that didn't make it into production