Dita Von Teese is a gorgeous, well-considered, meticulously put together image of frilly, no-muss retro femininity. In spite of this, she has launched a maternity lingerie line as gorgeous and delicate as she is, and it will be perfect for all your hottest new mom farts.
In a partnership with Destination Maternity, People reports, Von Teese has a limited-edish capsule collection called Von Follies by Dita Von Teese. The collection appears to be black lacy pinup-style bras and panties that will cost about $39 to $55.
Von Teese said of her collection:
“Elegant underpinnings are a simple way to create everyday moments of luxury and beauty, and why wouldn’t a new mother enjoy beautiful lingerie, too?”
…Um, I can think of a few reasons, like sheer exhaustion and a wildly changing body that has no idea what it is going to look like yet. Von Teese’s nursing bras have clip-down tabs and detachable cups, while the undies have a “discreet control panel for support.” Each piece is “made with moms in mind.”
But here is what lingerie made with moms in mind would include:
- Built-in pocket for baby monitor
- Attached fanny pack cooler for array of snacks to support breastfeeding mom’s need for extra nutrition
- Underwear large enough to accommodate Swiffer pad plus one backup
- Depression-resistant patterns, like clouds or sunshine
- Yoga pants in flesh tones that look “barely there”
- Built in pee absorption for coughs, sneezes
- Tissue pocket for unexplained sobbing
- Full body flannel gown for surprise chills as body experiences hormone crash
- Attached cool rag for postpartum hot flashes
- Pleated thong for airing out mad farts more comfortably
In fairness, Von Teese’s underwear does have this sheer back panel, which I think you could fart out of pretty easy:
Over at the Stir, Maressa Brown writes that the collection is smart and sexy, which I agree with. But she says that “new moms shouldn’t have to feel frumpy or as if their only options for underwear are basic white and boring at best.”
But I don’t think moms are pressured to have to feel frumpy, I think a lot of moms JUST DO feel frumpy. I remember the bras and undies I wore postpartum that were made with me in mind. They were a frump’s delight, a frumper’s dream come true. The undies were wide, loose, cotton, and enormous, and the bras were Industrial-Strength Hoisters. A girlfriend had shared a collection of secondhand nursing bras that had been borrowed by a number of mothers over the years. It was a well-worn pile of picked and well-laundered, beige and white bras, clearly the product of accommodating wildly expanding and contracting breasts during years of nursing.
They were functional to the max, and I loved them, because they were different in every way from traditional underthings. These were not bras meant to charm or seduce, they were a workhorse talisman of every woman who’d gone before me and struggled to figure out the latch, who’d suffered sitting through session after nursing session on a hot, aching vag, who’d sobbed with meatloaf stuck in their bra at 3 a.m. as they tried, begged, pleaded with their infant to please learn how to suckle correctly. And the giant granny panties? They may as well have been cashmere to my wincing vulva, which burned every time I peed.
It was the opposite of this:
Point being, it never even occurred to me to find sexy maternity lingerie, not only because being sexy was the last thing on my mind, but because the idea that how I looked was, at long last, irrelevant was deliriously, giddily, memorably freeing. I got to be and feel gross, tired, shitty, longsuffering, and in actual pain for as long as I felt it, and my undergarments were ready to do that job and that job only with no expectation that I look glamorous at all. This, to me, was essential to experiencing motherhood on my own terms.
I’m not saying a sexy collection of underthings pressures anyone to be anything they don’t want — I just ask that we consider the way we think about how women should or shouldn’t feel about their bodies postpartum (sexy or not sexy). Maybe you just feel how you fuckin’ feel, and it changes when you’re goddamn ready.
Maternity clothing is notoriously hideous, and that’s only recently starting to change. It’s only fitting that nursing underthings will follow. And Von Teese’s collection is tasteful and fun if you like that retro style pinup wear, which I think looks pretty cool. In fact, now that hot farts are not my everyday life anymore, I’m kind of way into it. You know what they say, fart hindsight is 20/20.