Summer of Love: Indie Swimwear Giveaway

Yazzmin (and a friend!) wearing our Jungle Twist Bikini 

Some of you may remember the Love Bomb that went off this february and the year before that! No, not a literal love bomb (that could get sticky), but a declaration of love to our fellow independent brands!

The Love Bomb is a celebration of independent lingerie and swimwear designers. Each of the brands taking part in the Love Bomb is run by a handful of people (and in some cases, even one!), standing up against the mega-corporations to bring you innovative, quirky and unique knickers!  

Unlike the big spenders we are in this game for the knickers – like you, we can’t get enough of them! Many a day is spent lusting after other brands’ lacy wonders and structured glories, so we thought what better way to encourage support for indie lingerie than to gather together for a big, sloppy Summer love bomb!

There are 3 gift baskets up for grabs! Each giftbasket has a voucher, bikini or swimsuit from each brand, plus eyelashes from Sheeba Raye, as used in the shoot, luxury bath and beauty gifts from Mon Epris and a voucher for vintage designer sunglasses store Lunetier!

We put together a fun shoot with model Yazzmin and John Tyrell, who created these psychadelic, 60′s inspired Summer Of Love illustrations. The amazing makeup was by Cheyenne Raymond and hair by Doubravka Marcinkova!

Yesterday's featured brand was Kiss Me Deadly:

HOW TO WIN ONE OF 3 GIFT BASKETS

You can enter UP to 4 ways:

1. Share our Summer of Love image publicly (make sure you choose "public" in the drop down menu when sharing an image) on facebook.

2. Tweet this link with the hashtag #summerloveswim

3. Blog about the Summer of Love (email us on anna@playfulpromises.com letting us know!)

4. Reblog our Summer of Love image on tumblr

We’ll collate all the entries on the 28th August, and pick 3 winners on August the 30th.

Here’s the list of people taking part so you know who to watch out for:

Kiss Me Deadly, Miss Mandalay, Playful Promises, Paolita

Accessories:

Sheeba Raye, Mon Epris, Lunetier Vintage

Spring/Summer 2014 previews

It's that time of year when our swimwear and lingerie samples are being prepared, ready to shoot next year's lookbook!

We've already shot our AW13 collection (part of which will be arriving in late July), and now it's on to the colourful fun of Swim/Lingerie SS14. 

 

The above 4 images give you a sneaky look at some of our swimwear for next year - which print is your favourite?

And here's a little teaser of our SS14 lingerie collection! 

Keep an eye on our instagram (@playfulpromises) for more sneaky previews!

Swimwear Giveaway: Tell Us Your Ideal Holiday

The skies are gradually brightening, which puts us in the mood for our Summer holidays! And we have just the thing to wear, now that our new swimwear collection has arrived!

And because we want YOU to have a colourful summer, whether at home or jetting off to exotic destinations, we're giving one lucky reader the chance to win a set of swimwear of their choice from our new collection! 

All you need to do is comment on this blog post with a description of your ideal summer holiday!

It doesn't need to be where you are ACTUALLY going this year (girl has got to dream, right), so be as crazy as you like.

Winner will be announced on the 18th!

To start you off, some of the Playful Promises girls describe their own:

Emma - Dartmoor, as it is one of the only places in the UK you can camp wild.

Harmony - The Bahamas - who can resist a perfect beach!?

Louise - Tulum in mexico to see the historical ruins and go diving to see the fish.

Lydia - Being the swing dance addict that I am, I'm already planning my Summer holiday at Swing Crash festival in gorgeous Lake Como, Italy...amazing food, lovely warm weather, dipping in the lake to cool off in the afternoons and then lindyhopping to live music til 6 in the morning. I might even pluck up the courage to enter one of the dance-offs this year...

Anna - I have to be a real bore and say I love visiting my parents in Cornwall. It may not be hot, but there ARE palm trees! Catching the first glimpse of St. Michael's Mount as the train pulls into Penzance is amazing.

 

Love Bomb 2013: Paolita

It's that time of the year again, and after last year's successful Love Bomb, we are doing it all again!

The Love Bomb is a celebration of independent lingerie and swimwear designers in the run up to Valentine's Day. Each of the brands taking part in the Love Bomb is run by a handful of people (and in some cases, even one!), standing up against the mega-corporations to bring you innovative, quirky and unique knickers!  

Unlike the big spenders we are in this game for the knickers – like you, we can’t get enough of them! Many a day is spent lusting after other brands’ lacy wonders and structured glories, so we thought what better way to encourage support for indie lingerie than to gather together for a big, sloppy Valentine’s love bomb!

Each day, one independent lingerie brand will be offering a giveaway or competition, while the other 7 brands will be shouting a lot about it! We even put together a sumptuous photoshoot for it, which will accompany the Love In!

 (Photography by Anna Swiczeniuk, Model Miss Miranda, Swimsuit by Paolita, Hat by Lily Lewis)

Day 8: Paolita

Paolita are giving away a £150 voucher to spend at their online shop or London boutique.
2 runner ups will win a lace bikini top each.  

Winners will be selected through a random draw.

To enter.....

1: Sign up to their Newsletter on their website

or

2: Email them at lovebomb@paolita.co.uk with the subject 'Lovebomb'

3: Share their Love bomb picture on your Facebook page

Censoring Swimwear

Swimming was originally thought of as dangerous (and indeed, with long skirts, it probably was), which lead to bizarre contraptions such as the "bathing car". I wish I could find a photograph or at least a drawing of one of these things, because it sounds ridiculous. A "bathing car" was a large wire cage attached to floats and a pulley system. One entered the cage and used the pulley to submerge themselves to the preferred depth - wild times. And just in case this got a bit too exciting, the Victorians were also greatly concerned with modesty. Women were either separated from men, or shielded from their eyes. They used wheeled "bathing machines" to immerse themselves, which also included "modesty hoods". 

At the turn of the century this paranoia for safety and the segregation of genders eventually passed, however women were still expected to wear neck to toe dresses in the water. It was only due to the participation of women in serious swimming (as a sport) that their swimwear shrank gradually, starting with the reveal of arms in the early 1910s until the 1920s with the showing of legs (gasp!). It also seemed to be the tightness of the garment that caused outrage.

Bathing suit arrests in Chicago, 1922

Vaudeville (and later, motion pictures) star and swimmer Annette Kellerman caused uproar with her risque swimwear. The Aussie "underwater ballerina" (a type of synchronized swimming which involves diving into glass tanks) first arrived in the United States in 1907, and brought with her a fashion revolution: the one piece swimsuit. Kellerman was even arrested for indecent exposure at Boston's Revere Beach in 1908, with the first outing of her "body stocking", and she soon altered the suit to cover arms and neck. The bathing suit allowed much more freedom than the layers of fabric previously worn, however it caused controversy by revealing the contours of the female figure. In some shocking cases, women even ROLLED THEIR STOCKINGS DOWN below the knees. Such a public nuisance were these women that the "Annette Kellerman" swimsuit was banned, and "beach censors" patrolled the sands handing out tickets and even collecting fines. 

Luckily, women just kept on pushing for fashion-freedom and from then on, swimwear just kept getting smaller until we get into 80's thong territory. The first bikinis appeared just after WW2, named after Bikini Atoll, the site of several nuclear weapons tests - for their supposed explosive effect on the viewer.... get it?....

 Shop Playful Promises swimwear!