Nowadays is a great time for women to indulge and enjoy themselves and fall in love with some of exquisite and gorgeous vintage styles.

There are loved and respected manufacturers of vintage lingerie - Van Raalte, Lorraine, Shadowline, and Vanity Fair, Deena, Laros, and Gossard Artemis - on the market. The list can certainly be continued but as the years go by these names are becoming rarer and rarer to come across.

Van Raalte is a name calling up positive associations of quality and attention to detail. The brand has always been known for the elegant undergarments, not deprived of feminine touch and sexy apparel.

Van Raalte Company was founded in 1913 by Emanuel Van Raalte to produce gloves, stockings & underwear. By 1937 the company succeeded in manufacturing the first fully fashioned nylon stockings. The women public warmly received the invention of nylon as earlier stockings were made of silk and costed very much. That’s why the day nylon stockings first went on sale 5 million pairs were sold in a day.

Van Raalte stockings were famous for their strait seam, the use of ultra thin monofilament nylon thread, and the patented welt styling. All these gave the stockings ultra sheer appearance and great looks. The most popular style was the “Nines” which displayed the nines cat printed in pastel colors.

In 1965 Van Raalte Company started the production of signage systems and from the very beginning they paying big attention to quality, flexibility, creativity, and originality.

Up till now the company manufactures standard products, as well as simple but creative tailor-made ones. It stays highly competitive in terms of both quality and price.

Contemporary underwear market is basically directed towards the young and the active, but there’s practically no underwear for senior citizens and elderly people. But still it does exist in the form of comfortable and elegant women knickers, long or shortened, panties and briefs made of hygienic cotton jersey, and also so called thermal underwear.

Thermal woolen underwear perfectly keeps you warm being as comfortable as the cotton one. It won’t let you freeze on a cold day. Such an effect is possible due to the special cloth structure with a lot of cells that create an air layer between your body and the environment and as a result your body actually warms itself.

At the same time the material it is made of is very thin, and the majority of models are seamless and cannot be noticed under your clothes. One of its main advantages is that it almost doesn’t stretch thanks to the included Spandex fibers.

The other function of thermal underwear (and the first one was preserving warmth) is to drain moisture from the body surface. For that polyester is included in the cloth structure. It wonderfully removes sweat from your skin. It should be mentioned that while coping with the task this type of underwear doesn’t get wet, and if does - it dries up incomparably quickly.

All these features make up the perfect underwear for senior citizens, but whom it can benefit as well? Of course, sportsmen and anybody who prefers outdoor activities to sitting in front of the boob tube – even in cold weather.

There are different models of thermal underwear that are designed for cool, cold and very cold weather and also thermal underwear for any weather whose main function is not preserving warmth but heat regulation.

With thermal underwear you can enjoy your favorite activity in various climatic conditions without feeling discomfort.

According to a survey, only 50% of women know that doing sports can negatively affect gentle tissues of woman’s bust. Ordinary lingerie cannot prevent undesirable bust “subsidence,” moreover its usage can lead to heavy breathing, back pains and bowels troubles even with light exercises.

Many firms work out special models of functional sportsmen underwear. Its creators try to make their garments beautiful and comfortable as well as take into account the specific character of different types of sports.

According to exercise stress that woman’s bust undergoes all types of sports and be divided into three groups. So there are three corresponding types of bras:

• bras for sports with small and average stress (exercise bicycle and the majority of gym apparatus, rowing, race walking, golf, yoga, roller skating, skiing, aerobics and cycle racing)
• bras for sports with heavy stress (jogging, tennis, mountain-biking, game sport, equestrian sports, intensive aerobics)
• bras for those who want to do sports with average stress and use blood pressure sensor to control the intensity of the exercises done.

So women should choose special lingerie for doing sports. There’s lingerie that don’t hinder movements and supports your bust.

1. Firstly, it should be of your size (like ordinary lingerie): too tight bras will squeeze your bust, which can lead to micro traumas and too loose ones will not cope with bust support.
2. Secondly, it should be superelastic.
3. Thirdly, it should completely cover mammary glands.
4. And at last it should be made of natural fabric: physical activity causes sweat secretion and synthetic lingerie doesn’t allow pores to breathe.
5. And note that ideal sportsmen underwear is made of elastic cotton.

“Physical activity should benefit our health, that’s why it’s necessary to know what stress is suitable for you, according to your needs, peculiarities of your body and state of your health. We all know that jogging and race walking, for instance, exercise cardiovascular system, and playing ping-pong develops reaction and coordination of movements. Besides, one should select comfortable outfits for doing sports, and women should correctly select lingerie to preserve their bust beauty”. – says Dr Günter Weismann, consulting physician of research laboratory Adidas in Germany.