Thursday 30 August 2012

Zahia Dehar, the 20-year-old French lingerie designer, will show her line at New York Fashion Week.

One of our favorite fashion characters to emerge of late is ex-underage French prostitute Zahia Dehar, who has gone on to launch a successful lingerie line and counts Karl Lagerfeld as an admirer and collaborator.

After staging two “couture” lingerie shows in Paris the past two seasons, we received word that the bombshell is bringing her brand of sexy to the US.

In case you need a little refresher, Dehar, now 20, was involved with European footballers in an underage prostitution scandal several years ago when she was 16. As a matter of fact, the case is still progressing (more on that here), with players denying they knew she was underage. Dehar was never charged with a crime, and she’s pulled herself up by her (lacey thigh-high) boot straps and reinvented herself, launching an eponymous lingerie line that has been embraced by fashion world, getting painted by famous artists, and generally making herself over as a celeb in her native France.

As far as being able to actually buy her delicate creations, we just got word that she’s rolling out an aggressive worldwide launch, starting with pop-up shops in Paris, London and Tokyo and will make her US debut to present her fall 2013 collection “mid 2013″ according to her reps. Dehar will sell at Liberty of London in the UK and Colette in Paris, so expect her line to show up at some fancy retailers here.

What’s more, we hear that Dehar will be spending more time in NYC and LA this winter. Her first stop on the NYC tour? Attending fashion week this September!

We’re dying to see what she’ll wear for her front row debut. And what labels will she show up at? We’d think Betsey Johnson and the Blonds would be obvious, but she may be going for more “serious” fashion. Think Proenza would be cool with her in the front row? It’s going to be fun to watch.

Want to get to know Zahia and her assets better? Take a peek at the behind-the-scenes video below for a lookbook shoot photographed by Ellen von Unwerth and click through for pics. Zahia is undoubtedly her own line’s best spokesmodel.

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