New season, new colours! Against the backdrop of the positive mood, confirmed at the Lingerie Salons in Paris, this is the moment to give new colour stories a try. Dora Larsen, the successful British start-up brand by an ex Topshop buyer, is going wild with colour and it works. She also told us that in her E-shop her customers are far more courageous in their colour choice than store buyers.

Last store check of the year in London and Paris shows a lingerie world that is playing safe when it comes to festive seduction. The high street and most of the mainstream brands are focussing on new necklines and placements of lace and guipure. Black and red are the traditional top colours. With black dominating in Paris, the Etam/Bash collaboration in Livy is the only contemporary direction in lingerie.The rest of the lingerie world is focussing on a traditional classic taste in seduction. The exception is the hot selling Balmain collaboration of Victoria’s Secret happily adding a new, more punkish element to the agenda and using a lot of unusual materials and construction technologies.

From the Victoria’s Secret extravaganza in Shanghai to interiors in cosy Scandinavian Hygge, retail has opened all the registers to make us forget the rising uncertainty in the world around us. Big retailers like Galeries Lafayette and Selfridges try hard to be super original, Le Bon Marché has young designers customising everything and live opera and ballet performances.