It has been a while since a little belly pooch had fashion appeal.
In the 17th-century Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens set salons afire with his fleshy beauties. Now, tummy rolls and dimpled flesh are ripe for reconsideration. The occasion? The introduction of Panty, a lingerie and ready-to-wear line by Michaela Stark, an Australian artist and designer known for distorting her flesh using corsets, garter belts and ribbons as if systems of hoists and pulleys.
“Panty is created by a lesbian couple,” Ms. Stark said, referring to the collaboration with her partner, the photographer Raga Muñecas. They hope to expand fashion’s horizons by accentuating and celebrating the soft paunches, buxom bosoms and luxurious thighs that women often bury in elasticated shapewear.
Panty offers fripperies that are sexy in an old-fashioned way: semitransparent bloomers with an updated cut to frame rounded stomachs, silk taffeta wrap belts to snatch waists, garters that celebrate the flesh’s folds and flirty baby-doll dresses. The collection is intended to flatter a wide range of bodies, including plus sizes that go up to 5XL, and to be worn as outerwear rather than concealed.
“I put an obscene amount of time into making lingerie that makes fat desirable,” said Ms. Stark, who, as a plus-size woman, doesn’t fit into a traditional mold of an underwear model. A self-trained designer who started as a seamstress in London and Paris, she has worked for Beyoncé and Victoria’s Secret and is hoping to herald a new aesthetic.
“It’s not about making curves desirable,” said Nick Knight, the British photographer and founder of the online platform SHOWstudio, who has collaborated with Ms. Stark on a number of occasions. “We’ve had that line of thought before. This is a new set of curves, and they’re manufactured by clothing. So it’s a sculptural process.”
