COURTESY COSABELLA
Sex in the City by Cosabella features lingerie designed with the four New York friends in mind. The collection will debut at Neiman Marcus next month in advance of the movie version of the HBO hit.
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Under where?
A family-run luxury lingerie company is debuting a new line of stylish inner-wear modeled after "Sex and the City's" fab four
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With the "Sex and the City" movie set to debut in late May, it made perfect sense for Cosabella, a family-run company that specializes in luxury lingerie, to team up with HBO to create a Sex and the City by Cosabella line, comprising four collections as befitting the personalities and dress styles of each of the series characters Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Miranda Hobbes and Charlotte York.
The collection is slated to arrive at Neiman Marcus and other fine lingerie boutiques in early May, at prices from about $20 for a bamboo thong to about $164 for a bustier.
In a poll on one of HBO's "Sex and the City" Web pages, 50 percent of women believe they are most like Carrie, 21 percent consider themselves to be most like Charlotte, with Mirandas numbering 17 percent and Samanthas picking up 12 percent of the tally.
Cosabella's collection was designed with all four in mind while taking into account those times the earnest, reserved Charlottes of the world turn into devilish Samanthas.
Whose style suits you best, and do you think you can match the lingerie in the photographs with the right SATC woman?
We'll reveal the answers below.
COURTESY COSABELLA
See if you can match the styles (above and below) to the characters.
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FULL STORY »
For some men, selling lingerie might seem the ideal career. Oh, the women they could meet, and license to look at every bosom, strictly as a matter of profession, of course.
The reality was somewhat less ideal for Guido Campello, vice president of branding and innovation for Cosabella, whose parents, Ugo and Valeria Campello, started the luxury lingerie company 25 years ago after moving to Miami from Moderna, Italy.
Initially, Valeria Campello sold lingerie from door to door, but her fine Italian-made intimate apparel quickly won a following that led to retailers' doors.
"It was weird to me as a kid," Guido Campello said during a recent visit to Neiman Marcus to conduct a training session for sales personnel. "I spent a lot of time in department stores playing in the racks. That was my childhood."
COURTESY COSABELLA
Sex in the City by Cosabella features lingerie designed with the four New York friends in mind. The collection will debut at Neiman Marcus next month in advance of the movie version of the HBO hit.
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COURTESY COSABELLA
Sex in the City by Cosabella features lingerie designed with the four New York friends in mind. The collection will debut at Neiman Marcus next month in advance of the movie version of the HBO hit.
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It got even weirder during his teen years, and holding his forehead in his hand in a pained way, Campello said, "It was terrible. Can you imagine, I am a 16-year-old boy coming up to you and saying, 'Here, you should buy this thong. You will like it.'
"What's changed is that women have become more comfortable talking about lingerie. Before, you couldn't talk to a woman about what she was wearing under her dress. Now they want information, so it's much easier for men to speak openly about it."
Among the phenomena leading up to all this openness were the inner-wear as outerwear movement of the 1980s, the skimpy slip-dress and see-through looks of the '90s and, more recently, the TV hit "Sex and the City," which turned lounging in pretty underthings into a desirable lifestyle.
After talks last fall, Cosabella signed a licensing agreement with HBO earlier this year to create a line of "Sex and the City" by Cosabella lingerie collection inspired by the four TV friends Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. The line will debut in early May at Neiman Marcus and other boutiques featuring fine intimate apparel.
Campello was already a fan of the show thanks to one of his own friends, who, early in the show's run, came up with the idea of hosting "Sex and the City" parties each night the series aired.
"He planned it so we'd cook dinner for women and sit down with them to watch the show. When the last show was about to run, he just about started crying. It was really brilliant while it lasted."
COURTESY COSABELLA
Sex in the City by Cosabella features lingerie designed with the four New York friends in mind. The collection will debut at Neiman Marcus next month in advance of the movie version of the HBO hit.
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NADINE KAM / NKAM@STARBULLETIN.COM
"What's changed is that women have become more comfortable talking about lingerie. Before, you couldn't talk to a woman about what she was wearing under her dress. Now, they want information."
Guido Campello
Vice president, branding and innovation, Cosabella
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THE RELATIONSHIP between "Sex and the City" and Cosabella is a natural fit. Cosabella, which means "beautiful thing" in Italian, aims to help women feel beautiful, sexy and feminine, and while certain discussions in "Sex and the City" did make Campello feel uncomfortable at times, he said its message was a positive one, even if it means "men have to be better."
"Women should feel as liberated as the characters on 'Sex and the City' and feel inspired by their freedom and independence.
"They definitely brought a female perspective to lingerie. While they were dressing up and looking sexy for men, they were also dressing for themselves."
The show promoted the idea that these were women with real-world concerns and sophisticated tastes, requiring respectful consideration rather than continually being subjected to the realm of trashy lingerie and objectification.
"All women probably had that experience where they went to get lingerie, but it didn't fit well, the fabric was not of the best quality and they felt ridiculous," Campello said.
Cosabella addresses that sentiment by delivering sophisticated designs and fine European fabrics, still handmade in small Old World workshops in Italy. The company's sizable following in 65 countries, from Europe to Asia, might be due, in part, to the company's female-centric culture.
"My mom is the boss of all of us," Campello said. "My older sister is my boss. She has two kids and she will be CEO one day. Our company always wants to be 70 percent staffed by women."
Most recently, Cosabella has also teamed with designer Carmen Marc Valvo to introduce sizes up to double D bras, which has required another level of design. Campello's father's background as an industrial designer comes in handy in dealing with support issues and ideal widths and placement of straps. The line will debut in fall.
Another recent innovation is Cosabella's use of bamboo fiber fabric in the Charlotte line. It's the company's first ecological line, and they are just beginning to study the fabric's antibacterial properties.
Again, it's a delicate subject to raise, and one that detracts from the romantic image of lingerie, but the company is taking the lead on an issue that could spur the next big revolution in the industry.
Campello said the natural fabric might lead to reductions in chafing and inflammation. "We haven't begun to understand how much it can do and how we can teach it, but we need to move in that direction."