September 1, 2012

Money bra wins HEMA design award

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 11:17 am

A student at the Delft University of Technology has won the audience award of a design competition held every year by Dutch department chain store HEMA.

Hiske Elferink designed a brassiere that contains a small wallet which can hold some change, a bank card and perhaps a key. She told Radio Netherlands (see the interview below) that she got the idea because when she goes clubbing, she puts her bank notes in her bra. The problem arises when you get change, because coins will slide down and jangle.

A quick Google taught me that this is not the first money bra.

The professional jury did not award a first prize this year. The winners and runners-up will be on display at the public library of Amsterdam (OBA) until October 31.

HEMA organises a yearly design competition for students. In the past, several of the winners and runners-up have made it into the store’s inventory, such as the 103% Vase, a vase that had a little side vase for the inevitable broken flower.

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November 23, 2010

Bra helps control cleavage wrinkles

Filed under: Design,Fashion,General by Orangemaster @ 8:31 am

Dutch inventor Rachel De Boer had wrinkels in her cleavage at an age when women don’t usually have them, and decided to come up with a way to get rid of them.

Her bra, called La Decollette (in Dutch, ‘cleavage’ is ‘decolleté’, from the French ‘décolleté’), is now being sold in about 100 lingerie shops in the Netherlands. It’s not a bra you wear during the day, it’s something you wear at night to keep your breasts apart, tightening the skin in between. It’s not sexy to go to bed with, granted, but if we can believe the results and the news item on telly, it makes a real difference.

I had heard of breast pillows that do the same thing, but this product obviously looks different and more confortable.

Necessity remains the mother of invention. I tend to just stay out of the sun like an 18th century European aristocrat.

(Links: telegraph.co.uk, Photo: decollette.nl)

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August 27, 2009

Trading in your old bras for new ones

Filed under: Fashion,General by Orangemaster @ 12:10 pm
bra

If you can trade in your old car or your old computer for a new one, why not your old bras? Thanks to Dutch lingerie brand Triumph, you can get 5 euro back to put towards the purchase of a new bra.

“It’s a tasteless stunt,” says Kledingbank Limburg (‘clothing bank’ for the poor in the southern part of the country), reminding us that underwear is the only thing you throw out and buy new. Underwear OK, but bras?

The more open-minded clothing bank in Haarlem thinks it’s a good idea because a new bra is very expensive and the used ones are sought after.

If you google around, you’ll see that tons of people do it and that it’s pretty common. Or they get creative and stuff them with plants.

(Link: fashionunited.nl, via bright.nl, photo: ecollo.com)

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