ZARA’s new lingerie collection launched at the end of October, as a collection of elegant must-haves priced for higher-income shoppers. The Spanish retailer’s first intimates collection launched with more than 125 pieces, including bras, bodysuits, panties and elegant innerwear.

Prices began at $17.90 for panties and $199 for a silk pajama top.

“A parallel femininity is explored through a more ‘everyday’ approach, designed with the intent of being worn from morning through night,” the company said in a press release.

What did stand out in Zara’s lingerie collection launch is their ‘The Female Gaze’ approach to photography, starring models Edita Vilkeviciute, Karly Loyce and Sara Blomqvist. Ludivine Poiblanc styled the campaign with creative direction by Fabien Baron.

Tracking ‘The Female Gaze’ Through Everyday Gestures

Photographer Annemarieke van Drimmelen’s short video Tadaima focuses on the intimacies of "small moments." Directed by Dorothea Barth Jorgensen and edited by Sarah Domogala, the film was shown at the Cannes short film corner and featured at WSJ Magazine.in advance of her 2017 ‘Tadaima’ show which opened in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint from December 2-9.

Interior, Inner Focus

Only 10 years old when her mother died, Annemarieke van Drimmelen picked up her mother’s camera, a gesture that began her first photo diary. “I remember my mom was always shooting, and then, when she didn’t anymore, it felt natural to take that over,” she says. “My dad was the subject because he was there. It was just these very small, everyday moments.”

The artist has long been preoccupied with these small moments, the quiet everyday gestures that seem boring on life’s big screen, even though they are often the primary DNA of individual identities. This more private, interior world has long been regarded as a female-identifying construct. Van Drimmelen brings this artistic perspective into the heart of her Zara lingerie campaign images.

Coincidentally, it comes at a time when COVID has installed most of us in more private environments for work and play, a world in which humans are suddenly constrained and not conquering the highest mountain of the moment.

Living, Not Conquering . . . With A New Exceptions

A couple exceptions come to mind — Elon Musk’s SpaceX perfect launch on Nov. 17, that delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station. Musk is now successfully using recycled rockets as a reminder of what is possible when we get serious about recycling.

And all the global scientists working on new COVID vaccines and in record time aren’t sitting around at home in their new Zara lingerie must-haves either. And then there’s the healthcare workers working themselves to the bone in hospitals worldwide, caring for desperately-ill patients. They’re not lounging around in silk panties either — but all can appreciate the poignant preciousness of Van Drimmelen’s images. Those health care workers can probably appreciate her artistry more than anyone, if only they have a moment to take notice. ~ Anne