Why This Lingerie Maven Is Finally Going Public About Her Sexual Assault
April 14, 2016 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
Shira Wheeler, founder of the lingerie brand Oddo, believes that getting to the heart of female health and sexuality starts in the underwear drawer.
“Your underwear is the most important garment you can put on your body in terms of your overall health,” she says. “There’s an active biological environment right there, on our bodies, that needs care and respect. The vagina is a self-cleaning, anatomical powerhouse that has to function properly in order to stay healthy.”
“That leopard-print thong you bought at the mall needs to go!” she insists, laughing.
Wheeler, 32, a successful designer and brand strategist who’s worked at some of NYC’s biggest advertising firms (and who is also the kind of doe-eyed, lion-hearted woman who greets you at her home with tea and strawberries and a cat for your lap), is passionate about getting back to basics when it comes to women’s health and sexuality. That’s why she founded Oddo, a brand of 100% cotton underwear that launched earlier this year on Kickstarter; the project is still seeking backers through Sunday, April 17. The panties she designed are manufactured in New York City, come in two styles and a range of neutral colours, cost $35 each, and feel soft as silk, courtesy of high-quality, breathable Japanese cotton.
But this is about more than just manufacturing your favorite new undies, says Wheeler. The primary goal of her company, she insists, is to “take a secretive and sometimes awkward conversation about our bodies and sex and re-frame it to reflect a proud, natural, and connected acceptance of sexuality and health.”
This is what makes Oddo no ordinary lingerie brand. For starters, its board of directors includes a sex therapist, a midwife, and a gynecologist. And each order comes with a glossy, bedside-table-friendly illustrated manual filled with tips, information, and inspiration about sex and sexual health. The first topic? Female pleasure (with a partner in mind). Never has such an intimate garment been designed so intimately.
“You can’t talk about that area without talking about sexuality. It’s traditionally been taboo and uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t be,” says Wheeler.
In order to truly explain why she feels the way she does about underwear, Wheeler says, it makes sense to talk publicly, for the first time, about what happened to her as a teen.
