Splendeur Soie is a collection I know inside out, yet the new peach colourway gave me a completely different feeling.
Lise Charmel has always been brilliant with colour. But when I first saw this particular shade, especially in the flowing robe and long nightdress with its lace-trimmed side slit, I didn't simply think peach.
I thought of French interiors. An old hôtel particulier in Paris. Parquet floors, tall windows, ornate panelling. A gilded mirror catching the morning light, with silk draped over the back of a chair. The sort of room that is beautiful without feeling newly decorated; where everything has been there long enough to acquire a little history.
Change the colour, and an entire collection takes on another personality. Black Splendeur Soie always makes me think of evenings: classic, confident, and a little dramatic. Ecru Nacre, the ivory shade, goes the other way entirely - softer and quieter, the sort of colour you picture on a slow morning with good coffee.
It makes particular sense in the longer pieces. There is something wonderfully unhurried about them - a touch of the older Riviera, grand hotels, shuttered rooms, warm stone, and that particular golden light you get later in the day. The kind of glamour that doesn't seem to be trying very hard.
It got me thinking about the boudoir. Not the slightly risqué meaning we attach to the word today, but the original idea of a private room within a grander home. A place to withdraw, to read, to choose jewellery or perfume, or simply to have a little time to yourself.
Modern life gives us so little equivalent. Most mornings are a rush of getting the children ready for school and checking the clock before you've even had a second to think. Mine certainly are. Getting dressed becomes just another thing on the list: shower, clothes, hair, keys, go. Manage to squeeze in a gym class as well, and I consider the morning a triumph.
And yet, there is something lovely about the idea that preparing for the day could once have been considered worthy of its own space and its own time. The peach Splendeur Soie somehow belongs to that world.
Most of the construction is unchanged. The silk is still the same silk, the familiar silhouettes remain. But there are two things worth knowing about the peach colourway specifically.
The first is the lace. Lise Charmel uses Leavers lace throughout Splendeur Soie - made on mechanical jacquard looms in the Calais-Caudry region of northern France, and carrying the Dentelle de Calais-Caudry® designation, which is essentially the protected mark of authentic French lace. The extremely fine weave produces exceptional definition in the design and a level of softness that you notice against the skin. In the peach colourway, that lace appears in a pale contrasting colour - at the neckline of the long nightdress and again along the side slit, drawing your eye through the design rather than revealing everything at once. Against the warm silk, it gives the pieces something close to an heirloom quality.
The second thing worth noting is that the long robe is new for this range. Splendeur Soie is usually available in mid-length only, but the peach colourway comes in both lengths - and the long is, I think, exactly right for it. Something about that unhurried, Riviera-in-the-afternoon quality that this particular shade has. The length earns it.
It reminded me that private luxury is about beautiful things experienced when nobody else is necessarily watching. The modern boudoir doesn't require an eighteenth-century room or a Parisian address. It is simply the permission to wear silk just because you want to, to choose your perfume even if nobody else will notice.
To take five minutes longer, and make an ordinary Tuesday feel deeply considered.
Nightdress and Mid-Length Robe
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Sarah Northey, Founder of Naughty Knickers
Sarah has spent over 15 years buying and curating luxury European lingerie, with a particular interest in French craftsmanship, independent houses and collection design.