This Lingerie Designer Wants to Put Powerful Figures on Your Panties

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This Lingerie Designer Wants to Put Powerful Figures on Your Panties

Thanks to Isa Lappalainen, you can now buy underwear emblazoned with the likes of Vladmir Putin, Tyra Banks, and Jesus.

Who wouldn't like a famous man in their pants? Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin, that ruined fresco of Jesus-now you can take your pick with Isa Lappalainen's lingerie line Glam Your Clam, which combines quirky catchphrases, famous weirdoes, and white cotton panties.

According to Isa's website, the collection was inspired by "vaginas so divine they deserve to shine," but I wanted to find out a little more about printing photos from Google images on underwear, so I got in touch.

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VICE: How did all this begin?
Isa Lappalainen: It started about two years ago as a project during my final year at art school. I was pretty uninspired and didn't know what to make. Eventually one summer night, some friends and I came up with this idea of putting random prints and funny texts on panties, and voilà! Glam Your Clam!

**Osama bin Laden's *"Can I hide here?"* is a personal favorite. Which ones are the big sellers?​**I'd say that Tyra Banks, Putin, and "Exercise? I thought you said extra fries" are the top three ones.

What's the best reaction you've had so far?
VICE calling! [Laughs] Also, someone from New York got in touch. She wanted to sell my panties in her shop but I'm not really sure what happened with that… I'm actually living in the desert in Australia at the moment.

That's right-I was told it's impossible to get hold of you.
Exactly. It's a bit tricky to control the company from here. I'm going to try to make it on more markets when I move to Melbourne-maybe I can get a stand at some music festivals, and hopefully reach out to more stores. We'll see.

I've heard that you want to create a fashion brand that's larger than Victoria's Secret. How's that's going?
Baby steps. I think it's going pretty well. A year ago I was only in Sweden, and now I've started up here in Australia, too. In the beginning, the brand was very feminist-based and I had a lot of inspiration. Now it's mostly about sexual puns. Maybe I'll go back to the original idea when I get tired of silly jokes.

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I saw that your panties recently made it onto 9gag.com. Congratulations!
Yes, thank you! Also, Tyra Banks tweeted about the panties a year ago but unfortunately the link to my website disappeared. So plenty of people saw the panties but didn't know where to buy them. Otherwise, I would probably be larger than Victoria's Secret by now.

What a shame. How does it feel to have Putin close to such a private area?
If you sometimes feel like you have less power as a woman in a world controlled by men, it's a way of taking back the power. However, there are a bunch of people who get upset about the panties. Some guys said that they'd leave if they were getting intimate with a girl wearing these, but I think that points toward some of the ideas around the brand-that you shouldn't let men control what you wear on your vagina. Instead, you should put some of the most powerful men in the world on your vagina. And if that makes boys want to leave, that's too bad for them.

See more of Isa Lappalainen's Glam Your Clam line and get your own pair here.

Follow Hanna Blåhed on Twitter.