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The Silk Drawer: The Ultimate Lingerie
For me, choosing and wearing the right underwear is important. Dire warnings at an impressionable age about traffic accidents and hospital staff snipping away my outer wear left an indelible mark. You just never know when you might be called upon to reveal what lies beneath; be it an unfortunate event or more happily an unexpected rendezvous with a secret paramour. So I wondered, where in New Zealand can one get the ultimate lingerie? The Silk Drawer in Auckland’s Chancery is owned and staffed by the utterly charming Donna Vieira. Driven by a passion for luxurious intimate apparel and in particular the Italian brand La Perla, she bought the business just over two years ago. With little prior experience in retailing you might think that a rash move – after all, wouldn’t this be the hardest thing of all to sell, with all those delicate self-images? However, Donna’s experience is wide and varied, including personal style consultation, health and fitness and even psychotherapy. She’s convinced that she refers to each of those past lives in her current role. Programmes such as “What Not to Wear”, “How to Look Good Naked” and the recent “Does My Bum Look Big in This?” all testify to the increasingly holistic approach to personal appearance. As we’re all now fully aware, looking good is more about self-image and appropriate choices than having the leanest body and wearing the latest trends. Lingerie fittings take this to a whole new level and at The Silk Drawer, Donna takes her inspiration from the European woman. “Being sensuous is part of being a European woman,” she says. “Lingerie is closest to your skin. In Europe women wear lingerie first for themselves and will often pay more attention in their choice of undergarments than their outer wear.” She believes that underwear should make a woman feel sensuous, feminine, glamorous and elegant no matter what size or shape the body within. So when attending to a client (or a client’s male friend) she listens to the story behind the purchase and tries to match the garment to the personalities involved and the circumstance. “Some people come to me looking for something to give them a lift in their daily life. Others are already having a great time and simply want to amplify that.” For the last fifteen years Donna has worn nothing but La Perla lingerie, a testament to her enduring passion for the product. La Perla has been making swimwear, nightwear and lingerie for 56 years and proudly claims to have been featured in almost every Bond movie so far. The latest movie not only had the Bond girls wearing La Perla but 007 himself was seen in La Perla swimwear. The garments are made using exquisite fabrics such as the lighter-than-light silk lycra and impossibly delicate spider lace. Embroidery and hand-beading are frequent features as are the unique-to-La Perla lace designs. It pays to look closely as some of the lace features sophisticated and racy designs, such as one with entwined bodies masquerading as florals. For the adventurous, La Perla has the risqué and provocative Black Label range. This season’s theme refers to the medieval knight heading off on crusade and leaving the lovely wife securely locked in a chastity belt with the key held by the priest or monk for safe-keeping. Only as we know, self-restraint is not always part of the pious man’s character and the subsequent entertainment features strongly in the tongue in cheek designs. As you can imagine these garments are definitely not for wearing when the children are around; far too many straps, gaps, crosses and erotic prints! For the slightly less saucy or simply for those quieter days, La Perla’s other ranges, the elegant La Perla or the youthful Malizia, suit most tastes and the patented structure combined with the exquisite fabrics mean you should feel fabulous about yourself while almost forgetting that you’re wearing any underwear at all. In general The Silk Drawer’s clients tend towards the well-heeled. One client, who loves riding her many horses on the beach and into the sea, buys a bikini to match each horse every season so that she looks and feels fantastic. It seems incredible that this kind of lifestyle happens in New Zealand. However there are also students who save for weeks or months to purchase that special item or two because they deserve it. And as Donna reminds me, “We all deserve to look and feel fabulous, don’t we!” 
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