Beauty Series

Beauty Series

"Much of the stress and emptiness that haunts us can be traced back to our lack of attention to beauty. Internally, the mind becomes coarse and dull if it remains unvisited by images and thoughts which hold the radiance of beauty." - John O'Donohue
 
One of our favourite writers, John O'Donohue, once said that "we tend to associate beauty with glamour", the word beauty can be a muddied word and we often think of flawless dewy skin and unattainable body sizes. When you traditionally think of the underwear industry, it feels grotesque and cheap. For too long, it has exploited the use of sex to sell under garments and project women through the male gaze. Alongside this notion, are the unrealistic beauty standards in which women (and men. Let's be honest, has anybody seen a plus-size male model yet?) feel judged and needing to conform to.
 
This past few months we've been dwelling on the concept of real beauty. We've found that indulging and reflecting on beauty and art, a place of healing. We wanted to share this inspiration, as it's really the driver for our aesthetic. But more importantly, it's timely.
 
We are collectively reeling with emotions. Exhaustion is mirrored on the faces of all the people we love and for different reasons. We are experiencing micro traumas, present traumas and ancestral trauma. We find ourselves breathing a sigh of relief, as we cross one finish line and then bracing ourselves, as we pummel through the next (we see you third-wave of covid friends). Collectively and individually, adversity feels apparent through all the lenses we view the world; physically, economically, socially, environmentally and politically.
 
We know many people are wrestling with the many emotions and grief that 2020 has brought. We see beauty as the bridge, or perhaps, catalyst to help us move from grief to hope. Because, we sure need hope right now.
 
In fact, a lot of people have shared how much they have loved our campaign and marketing. So we want to share snippets of what inspired us back in August/September, when we dreamt of concepts and briefs.
 
"When I think of the word “beauty,” some of the faces of those that I love come into my mind. When I think of beauty, I also think of beautiful landscapes that I know. Then I think of acts of such lovely kindness that have been done to me, by people that cared for me, in bleak unsheltered times or when I needed to be loved and minded. I also think of those unknown people who are the real heroes for me, who you never hear about, who hold out on frontiers of awful want and awful situations and manage somehow to go beyond the given impoverishments and offer gifts of possibility and imagination and seeing." - John O'Donohue
Beauty as an expression of hospitality for our new period underwear collection
Beauty captures a moment in the mundane. "I become attentive to beauty in ordinary, everyday aspects of my life. There is nothing more delicious than my first cup of tea in the morning; no experience more pleasurable than when my son, now much taller than me, wraps me in a hug; no view I find more breathtaking, over and over again, than the white pine that stands day in and day out behind my backyard." - Krista Tippett
 
Beauty is triumph through suffering. "But you know what? I think we lose sight of the beauty. The most beautiful things I look back on in my life are coming out from underneath things I didn’t know I could get out from underneath. The moments I look back in my life and think, “God, those are the moments that made me,” were moments of struggle." - Brene Brown
 
Beauty is being human. "Art is the act of triggering deep memories of what it means to be fully human" - David Whyte.
 
Beauty is change. "We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." - Maya Angelou
 
Through Reemi, we want to continue to express this value as a challenge to the traditional underwear industry and to break the rules of how an organisation needs to market or function. We don't exist for a profit, because there aren't any shareholders receiving a cheque at the end of the day, so we feel we can be genuine in occupying this space.
 
Join us in our aspirations. Explore beauty, art and loveliness around you.
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