It may be Star Wars Day but on this blog we’re still celebrating National Intimate Apparel Market Week this week.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Intimate Apparel Market Week is a time when industry leaders to come together and exchange information and ideas about this vital sector of the fashion industry. The Underfashion Club sponsors Intimate Apparel Market Week four times a year during the first week of February, May, August, and November.. This nonprofit organization was founded in 1958 as the Corset and Brassiere Women’s Club, Inc but in 1963 it was changed to the Underfashion Club.
In the fashion world, intimate apparel is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. In 2021, the global industry generated nearly $85 billion. At its current growth rate, the market is expected to reach over $325 billion by 2025.
Women account for two-thirds of market share with individuals over 36 making up a majority of intimate apparel buyers. The most popular types of intimate apparel include bras, that account for 55.5% of the market. In fact, $150.4 billion worth of bras are sold each year.
In 2022 the US accounted for 21.4% of the lingerie market ($61.3 billion) and were the second largest market after China ($62.1 billion). Following the US on the list is India, that only accounts for 6% of the total market with $16.8 billion in lingerie sales.
How To Observe #IntimateApparelMarketWeek Go shopping for new lingerie. Men should buy some new intimate apparel for your partner, even if it’s a comfortable pair of pajamas. Attend a fashion show in your area. Learn about the intriguing history of lingerie. You can read the history of some it it, specially see-through lingerie right here on this blog.
How we’re going to observe Intimate Apparel Week: Starting this part Monday, I’ll be featuring a different glamour image of some of the best models I’ve worked with (wearing intimate apparel, of course) in the past several years along with some behind-the-scenes images and maybe even a video of the shoot on my YouTube channel.
About the Model: One of the best ways to find glamour models is through referrals. I met Lori through a mutual friend who was a talented makeup artist and who did the make up for her during this session. I only got to photograph Lori once before an opportunity for her opened up in New Mexico and she moved out of Colorado. I keep thinking of all of the great-looking images we could have made if we had more than one shoot.
How I made this shot: For this portrait, I photographed Lori in my 11×15-foot home studio against a seamless paper alternative: Savage’s affordable Economy Background kit that includes a black polyester backdrop along with support stands The portrait was shot using an Olympus EM-10 Mark I and Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens with an exposure of 1/125 second at f/11 at ISO 400. Lighting was from a Purple Haze Alien Bee B800 monolight with a Plume Wafer Hexoval 100 attached and placed at camera right. The .ORF file from the Olympus camera was lightly retouched using Imagenomic’s Portraiture and tweaked in Vivenza and Color Efex Pro.
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You can learn more about my posing techniques in Posing for Portrait & Glamour Photography and brand new books are available from Amazon.com for just $29.95 with used copies starting around sixteen bucks, as I write this. Kindle versions are $26.95 for those preferring to have the book in digital form.