Chantal Thomass,
the "amazon woman" of sexy lingerie

Portrait of Chantal Thomass,
"the amazon woman of sexy lingerie"
LE MONDE, 10/08/2007 by Florence Evin
With her half-cup push-up bras, her fishnet stockings and her garters, sexy underwear that pushes the boundaries, Chantal Thomass defied the rules. It was the beginning of the 1970's. Hippies and feminist movements were calling women to burn their bras.

With humour and insolence, Chantal Thomass went the exact opposite direction. Not with a particular strategy, but with a love of frills. "She shared with her generation this love affair with seduction; this mischievous coquetry, never trashy, but very French," testified Christian Lacroix. "She used sensuality that bordered on eroticism, deadpan type without feeling obligated herself to play the roles one finds in soft-porno." The designer overuses ribbons, Chantilly lace, offers merrywidow made of flannel; she makes corsets in suede or satin- the first in 1975- based on the design of men's shirts, playing with male/female contrasts, "without ever hesitating to add spicy touches," in her designs, specified Chantal Thomass.

"There is generosity, sophistication, temptation, seduction, and sensuality of course in her character, her approach, and in her work, but never just provocation with the desire to shock, never the use of force," insists Lacroix, who himself is crazy about lace. "Little by little she opened the door and entered into a relatively new domain somewhere in between a well-mannered Pigalle and a bourgeois luxury, just a little torrid.

Being a pioneer, Chantal Thomass has devised, since 1972, the first "day lingerie" putting underwear on top. A way of dressing-up that is today followed by Cecilia Sarkozy, in satin bodysuit of lace straps, on August 2nd, on the front page of the Nouvel Observateur. A fashion also followed by teenagers that show the colored lace and braids of their bras underneath their tank tops.

Ceaselessly innovative, working together with craftsmen and manufacturers, from Calais to Caudry, she helped create Lycra lace in 1979 that was the perfect stretch to make the sexy pantyhose that she designed, putting arabesque covered legs into style.

The "Parisienne," as named by Kenzo Takada - her accomplice since the beginning- has maintained her thin waist: she eats little, smokes, drinks white wine and champagne?very diuretic. Styled like Louise Brooks, creamy white skin, and a mouth red like a geisha, she is this "look" that she adopted in 1984 as a logo for her brand.

Her refuge in the Perche is her theatre, an old home from the 16th century that she restored with passion. With a "boudoir" style, and a poetry she is known for, she married pink with black, forged iron with gilded wood, lustres of Murano with mirrors of Tangiers. She received us, patent leather thigh boots, a men's shirt, and a short cardigan. Chantal, named Genty on her birth on September 5, 1947 in Malakoff, tells of her ordinary childhood, in a suburb, with a home-maker mother and an engineer father, and vacations in Normandy: "Very quickly, at 11 years old, I told myself, 'I have to change this background, and leave this boring, middle class world.'" She stopped her studies instantly. Bruce Thomass, her boyfriend, was a fine arts student and descended from the Tomac Indians. He painted the fabrics that she would buy at "Marché St-Pierre". She designed the dresses, her mother would sew them.

Her first success: Dorothée bis in St. Germain-des-Prés, where she went to try and sell the dress that she had in her basket: "Make me three of them," she heard Jaqueline Jacobson reply, who remembers this "child with her two braids, and a freshness that was solely hers with a lot of imagination."

In the summer of 1966, not yet 19 years old, Chantal Thomass boldly went away with her painter to St. Tropez, rented a maid's room, and introduced herself at the Café des arts, belonging to Jean-Marie Rivière. The Dolce Vita's boss bought three dresses from her, and called her back: "I sold one at Bardot and one at Michèle Mercier, make me ten." Each piece is unique, and it was necessary to respond to the demand. The lovebirds married in 1967 (and stayed together for twenty five years). Her parents set her free so she could create her company: Ter et Bantine (a wink at Bruce's paintbrushes).

1970: fashion show at salle Wagram, with staging by Alfredo Arias, on a boxing ring. She shared the podium with Kenzo and Dorothée bis, and presented her tartan underwear and bras with a heart at the point of the cup. This display attracted a lot of attention: the first letters of the three designers covered the breasts and the pubes of a naked model. "It's the first time that someone has shown girls somewhat exposed on a podium with few clothes". Her underwear would soon take off.

Ten years later, luck turned. With 50 employees who worked to fill the orders of 200 vendors all over the world selling her products, she decided to join the Japanese group "Word". "Up until the clash in 1995," she remembers, "I was a minority, they thought they could skip over the designer. I left with nothing." The brand closed a year after she left. Her stores and her patterns were auctioned off. But she was without the slightest bitterness: "That made me feel great. I learned how to make concessions, working for other companies, with marketing teams." She was called on to be a consultant for the biggest companies: Victoria's Secret, Palmers & Wolford, Sara Lee (Dim). One year later she bought back her brand and her name.

1999: new scandal. At the Galeries Lafayette, she put real live models in the decorated store windows for a display, like furniture in an apartment. That was a general outcry from the right and the left. Until "Chiennes de Garde" -french feminists. A petition was written in "the name of human dignity," followed by a huge demonstration and a call for a boycott of the big Parisian department store, remembers Julian Cendres. In his illustrated book, "Femme, according to Chantal Thomass" (Flammarion, 2001), the writer gave consideration, with snapshots to support it, to her "visionary impertinence." The same year, the exhibition "Plaisir de femmes, Chantal Thomass thirty years in the making", at the Museum of Fashion in Marseille, gave tribute to her.

In spite of her notoriety from Las Vegas to Tokyo, from Shanghai to Milan, she has kept her anti-conformist reputation intact, along with her act in the moment attitude. She has "a computer in her head, and a great attention to detail," summarizes Julien Cendres, who met her in 1994, when she saved the "beaded net" technique of Perriere (Orne) started by Paul Poiret for the Charleston dresses from the 1920's.

When we met her, the "amazon woman" was preparing for her marriage the following day. Everyone would dance until dawn. She would wear a black tulle skirt, white shirt and corset, high pointy heels, and gloves of old lace. Just like she was at 20.