Odile de Changy Lingerie

Paris may be the lingerie capital of the world, but even here a boutique like Odile de Changy is a rarity. Tucked away on the Marais’s newly chic rue du Pont aux Choux, the tiny boutique-atelier would have fit right in among the tailors and notions shops that lined the street until just a few years ago. Changy opened her boutique in 2009, after studying textile design and honing her skills with Erès and Givenchy. The shop’s timeless feeling has much to do with the quality of the lingerie, which is handmade in luxurious French lace and featherweight silks that breathe and move with the body.

Each collection has only a few models, including corsets, bras, teddies, hipsters and marvelously alluring full panties, all both exquisite and wearable. Each season brings a new palette of soft, romantic colors, along with basic white and black: mauve, violet, dove grey, pale rose. Changy credits her inspiration to a small valise she once found in an attic, filled with beautiful old lace underthings, and to her elegant ancestresses, whose photos line the shop’s walls. With only two small racks of choice pieces, it’s as close to custom-made lingerie as most of us will ever come.

Open 2–7 pm, Tues–Sat. 6 rue du Pont aux Choux, 3rd, 01.42.78.86.25. www.odiledechangy.fr

Originally published in the November 2012 issue of France Today