$6,000 Golden Underpants Now for Sale - East Idaho News
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$6,000 Golden Underpants Now for Sale

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HT gold lingerie ml 130807 16x9 992?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1375974816857Rococo Dessous(NEW YORK) — It’s time to scrap your tin long-johns. Golden lingerie has arrived.

Rococo Dessous of Switzerland, Monaco and New York has introduced a line of underwear shot through with threads of precious gold. Prices for the thongs, bras, camisoles, slips and other 24 karat unmentionables range from $1,500 to $6,000, says Sascha Hertil, managing director.

“The innovation is the thread,” he tells ABC News. “There has been gold thread before, but it used a different technology and could not be 24 karat.”

In India, for example, says Hertil, there is a long history of gold-thread-making that heats the metal, then steams it onto textiles. But the process does not work for gold of highest purity, which fails to attach.

“In our case, we gold-plate the thread on an atomic level.” The process, he says, was invented two years ago in Switzerland. “We use atoms of pure gold — by definition, 24 karat.”

A look-book for the collection explains that mankind’s desire for golden underpants dates back to antiquity. “Tutankhamun wore linens embroidered with the precious metal. All great empires then followed,” it says. The Tsars, the Emperors of China, the Kings of France all shared the same yearning.

It was only with the French Revolution, though, according to the look-book, that the doors to everyone’s someday having gold underpants were thrown open.

Which brings us to the present era.

Quoting from Rococo Dessous’s literature: “Each object is produced from Swiss gold fabric, hand-stitched in New York and is made-to-order for our clients.” Just as with bars of bullion, every bra and panty has a unique identifying number.

According to the World Gold Council, the best method for cleaning gold is to use a mild cleansing fluid and to “polish the metal in a gentle, circular motion, making sure to cover the entire surface.” One then repeats the motion, with a dry cloth. As the Council says, “Every effort you make to care for your gold will pay dividends.”

Hertli tells ABC it’s too early yet to say how the collection will sell, since it only debuted in May in Monaco.

“We’re in a growth phase,” he says, “still building distribution. The Middle East is important to us, and Ramadan, which ends tomorrow, has been a dead period. We see the most excitement in the Middle East and Russia.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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