Well headlines around the world are filled to the brim with the Saudi Lingerie story that we first brought to you in 2009 when Harlette Luxury Lingerie travelled to Saudi Arabia to deliver the 10 day lingerie masterclass for Reem Asaad’s KSA Lingerie campaign. Since then the King Abdullah added his full support back on June 6th 2011 giving retailers 6 months to have women hired trained and ready to serve by January 2012. Headlines have reported 28,000 women are now ready to work in the Kingdom selling lingerie and cosmetics. We received this tweet from Reem last week.
So its a successful result for Saudi Lingerie campaign and the economic changes for Saudi Arabia as women enter the workforce in this new area. We received one message this week from a gentleman in London where he commented it was a shame that men had to be banned from working in this field but one has to remember that the pendulum has to swing both ways until it finally rests in this middle.
One needs to remember even at Selfridges on Oxford st, London men are only allowed to work and process transactions at the main cash counters. Men are not employed for the purpose of measuring, fitting or serving women lingerie at our department stores. So Saudi Arabia is giving women the service the rest of the world enjoys which is women serving women in the area of lingerie products.
In China, we have seen a different point of view when it comes to Lingerie. According to the Telegraph in UK, Chinese women do not see the sense in Luxury Lingerie, or the need to spend discretionary income on fabrics for enticing and enchanting a man that they already have.
This is what the Telegraph had to say in their article The mystery of China’s big spenders
High-end lingerie labels, for example, such as La Perla and Agent Provocateur, have failed to crack China “Chinese women,” French explains, “don’t want to spend a fortune on something that only a man they’ve already snared is going to see.” 124 men to every 100 women, women don’t feel they have to put on a vamp act to find a partner.
Of course the stand out story that is dominating most of the headlines, blogs and arab debate is the Woman in the Blue Bra. For those of you that have missed this story, during a recent demonstration in Egypt the military demonstrated to the general public that they had control by strategic attack on a women dishonouring and humiliating her publically by removing her clothing including her abaya to reveal a blue bra. The woman has remained anonymous but this image of the blue bra has become iconic, an echo of what a delicate tightrope, that Egypt face on the true understanding of the actual social and civil liberties left after the arab spring.
This image has created the term Blue Bra Revolution academics, journalists and writers have been spurred into action by the footage and the pictures discussing the power of women given the attack. This horrific image has become the symbolism for hope, that despite the actions of the military, the woman in the blue bra became a symbol in Egypt for the emancipation of women from religious oppression. Activists replaced the eagle on the flag with a blue bra. The hashtag #bluebra became a rallying cry against the government.
It will be interesting to see the sale statistics for blue bras for the 4th quarter of 2011 and the 1st quarter of 2012 as it has been reported that women all over the world have been buying blue bras in response, that women who are facing extreme conditions either domestically or financially have been buying blue bras to give them more courage if feeling oppressed or needing extra confidence, particularly around men. Its a trend to keep an eye on in 2012.
In Australia the statistics on women owning horses in the horse racing industry have just been released and the figure is 25%. The wife of Gerry Harvey Katie Page-Harvey has launched an interesting campaign to increase women’s participation in the industry by offering a $500 thousand women in racing incentive prize for 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th place winners of the magic millions 2013 BMW two-year-old Classic in 2013.
This prize is to increase the participation of women in the Horse racing industry in Australia. The 2013 BMW two-year-old Classic on the Gold Coast will see the first four all-women owned or leased horses share in $500,000 additional prize money. The first horse will win $350,000, $100,000 for second, $50,000 for third and $25,000 for fourth.
The scholarship prize was launched on the Gold Coast yesterday for the start of the Magic Millions Horse Auctions. Gai Waterhouse one of Australia’s pioneers of women in racing spoke at the event to inspire women to begin the journey of investing in horse racing industry.
