London-based designer Georgia Larsen worked as a lingerie buyer for a number of years before applying her thorough knowledge and passion for women's underwear to create her own brand, Dora Larsen. The experimental underwear brand combines the delicate materials of mesh, stretch tulle, eyelash lace and effervescent shades to create both modern and unfussy pieces; beautiful silhouettes aimed to empower every woman through Georgia's firm belief in lingerie being one of the most confidence building pieces of clothing you can buy. Here she shares five senses from her world.
I’ve always been fascinated with ‘pretty’ things so lace and sheer fabrics are textures I’m naturally drawn to.
I think this is the core reason of why I was so attracted to lingerie specifically. After working as a lingerie buyer, I made a pretty snap decision one day to just leave my job and pursue a career on my own. There wasn’t much brain storming or planning because I’d been thinking of this idea for so many years, so I had the designs all mapped out in my head!
Designing a bra is a bit like being an engineer.
Every material you use has to have the perfect amount of stretch and strength, combined with the right construction. I’m interested in mixing textures - a sporty fabric with a girly lace for example. Using fabrics that oppose each other often creates something more interesting and with lingerie, I'm always trying to make sure I'm doing something new as fit-friendly designs and fabrications can be so limiting.
The household I grew up in was very creative and full of inspiring things.
My dad is a surrealist artist, so the house was covered in works of art and design books. The rest of my family is generally made up of fashion designers, architects and furniture designers so there’s definitely something in the blood! I spent most of my childhood drawing and then as a teenager became fixated on fashion, raiding our fancy dress box and sewing old bits of clothing onto something new.
My feelings towards color are summed up so perfectly by a quote I read by Henri Matisse: 'It is not enough to place colors, however beautiful, one beside the other. Colors must also react on one another. Otherwise, you have cacophony.'
I’m obsessed with color and in particular how colors sit together to create something new. This occurs all the time in nature, so for that reason i’ve always looked to how colors appear in the sky, in flowers and in sceneries.
Smelling a scent from my teenage years literally makes me feel like a teenager again.
I usually wear a different scent for a different period in my life. There's a particular scent that will always remind me of my early days of meeting my husband and our first flat together, that relief of meeting someone I felt so incredibly comfortable and myself around.