Ana Silva

I trained as a fashion journalist in Lisbon and Paris, and I ran a small independent lingerie label for four years before I gave up on the production side and went back to writing. That combination — journalism plus a stint on the manufacturing floor — shapes how I cover this category. I know what a lace applique actually costs, I know why some brands charge two hundred euros for a set and some charge twenty, and I know which of those price differences reflect real quality and which reflect marketing markup.

I joined the editorial board in 2018 to build out dedicated lingerie coverage, which had until then been handled catch-as-catch-can. My beat covers everyday and occasion lingerie, erotic apparel in the broader sense, sizing and fit, and the underlying economics of a category that most fashion journalism treats with an almost embarrassing lack of seriousness.

Lingerie writing tends to fall into two failure modes. It’s either aspirational catalogue prose — glossy, empty, undifferentiated — or it’s clinical fit-guide content that reads like a plumbing manual. I try to sit in the middle. I want readers to enjoy reading a piece about a beautiful garment and to come away with actual, usable information about whether it will fit them, how it will wear, and whether it’s worth what it costs.

Sizing is where I probably diverge most from other editors. I refuse to write sizing guides that pretend there’s a standard chart. There isn’t. Brands vary wildly, cup shapes vary wildly, and the industry’s collective refusal to standardise means readers are forced to become their own fit experts. I try to give them the tools to do that without shame or fuss.

Beyond this beat I write occasionally for a Portuguese fashion quarterly and I’ve been slowly working on a longer piece about the collapse of European lingerie manufacturing that has been “almost finished” for approximately three years. I live near the river in Alfama with far too many books.