Rihanna and the Underwear Question

Rihanna launched a lingerie line. It’s called Savage × Fenty and it sells thongs for around €25, bras between €20 and €30, and corsets somewhere around €100. Reasonable pricing for something with her name on it.

She’d already done the Puma collaborations, already built the Fenty Beauty empire from scratch. But underwear feels more intimate than sneakers. It’s the thing closest to the skin, the thing nobody sees unless you decide they can. Rihanna designing that particular category makes a kind of sense that a lot of celebrity fashion lines don’t—she has an unusual ease in her own body and she projects it outward without apparent effort. That quality translates into lingerie in a way it doesn’t always translate into outerwear.

I spent more time on the website than I’m willing to fully account for. The honest version is that I was mostly just thinking about what I wanted to see on someone, which is the correct relationship to have with Rihanna’s lingerie line. Anyone holding out hope for the worn version is going to be disappointed. For now, anyway. What isn’t yet can always still become.