Harlette

Harlette
Born	(1975-07-17) 17 July 1975 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Residence	London, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	White British
Citizenship	British
Education	Bond University
Occupation	Designer, entrepreneur, lingerie
Years active	2005–present
Known for	Britains Next Big Thing (2011)
Website
http://www.harlette.com

Harlette De Falaise (born 17 July 1975) is an Australian & British designer, media personality and entrepreneur, best known for her work in the Britain and Saudi Arabia.

Early life

Harlette grew up in a small "private like" beach community, called Little Manly, in Sydney, Australia to British parents. Tragedy befell the family in 1978 when Harlette’s father Peter drowned suddenly when a sandbank collapsed in pittwater, a day before he was to commence with Qantas as their industrial relations manager, her mother Sandra a school teacher later remarried Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles rugby league player Graham Williams, who died of a motorbike accident in 1994.

Harlette has a sister Sophia, who married Dr Bruce Whittingham and they have four girls three of which Ariana, Isabella and Analise were born on the coast of South Devon, and the youngest Portia born on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia. Harlette's great grandfather was an artist that divided his time between London and Paris and his body of work included military, naval, landscapes, and back drops for London theaters including works for Ivor Novello. The ancestral family home in Saint Helier Jersey was interned and occupied during the Second World War, which saw the family return to London.

Career

Born in Sydney, New South Wales on 17 July 1975, Harlette graduated from Bond University with an MBA and a Bachelor of Information Technology,^[1] she was awarded a scholarship for highest academic achievement and started university at the age of 16. At the age of 30, she moved to London, where she gained contract roles at investment banks including Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley

Fashion career

In 2005, Harlette founded the company “Harlette Luxury Lingerie", to provide a one of a kind luxury lingerie concierge service. After a chance meeting at the Kensington chamber of commerce function with London Fashion Forum, representative David Jones late in 2005.

Harlette was accepted in early 2006 to take one of the 20 places given each year to be mentored by the London Fashion Forum program and shortly after Harlette was interviewed by the BBC during London Fashion Week, for a lingerie story. During 2006 & 2007 Harlette resided most of time in Dolphin Square and wanting to research the market she gained luxury retail roles including Selfridges and Louis Vuitton in Oslo Norway.

In 2008, another chance meeting with infotainer & speaker trainer Joel Bauer Harlette got the opportunity to perfect the art of infotainment.

She gained widespread media attention in 2009 when she was the first women invited to Saudi Arabia to run a 10-day master class on the Art of Selling Lingerie for 26 Saudi women,^[2] which was created to support the Reem Asaad lingerie KSA campaign started on facebook in 2008 to enable women to work in lingerie stores that resulted in the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decreeing on 6 June 2011 that women should work in lingerie stores instead of men.^[3]

Up until this time only men were allowed to be working in lingerie stores, no formal lingerie sales and fitting training was available for measuring women for bras, no fitting rooms existed and high censorship levels of information exist in the kingdom in relation to lingerie companies' websites due to modesty laws.

In 2010 news broke of Harlette’s patent which was awarded on Bastille day in 2009 ^[4] for the world’s first Diamond and Platinum suspenders garters, shortly after her lingerie collection debuted on the catwalk in Paris at Salon International de la Lingerie and the collection being invited to showcase at an Oscars style lounge in 2010.^[5]

Later in 2010 in London, encouraged by her bestfriend Deborah Read, a director ^[6] in Hollywood, Harlette trained with the acclaimed Robert McKee to perfect the craft of The Story.

In August 2010. The Economic Times listed her company as the 5th most unique company to provide services globally just below the black label American Express card.^[7]

Harlette's brand has two nominations in the 2011 & 2012 UK Lingerie Awards, as well as nominated as a finalist for the NSW Premier Export Awards 2011 in Australia.^[8]

Media

In 2009 Harlette was asked by Swedish newspaper Expressen to write a debate on term she created called Braconomics and the intimate insights she had on the Saudi Lingerie campaign.^[9] After leaving Saudi Arabia to showcase some of the collection at Wimbledon Fashion Week in 2009, Harlette has been interviewed by Radio New Zealand, New Straits Times,^[10] The Star (Malaysia),^[11] and Gold Coast Bulletin on the Saudi Arabia lingerie campaign.^[10]

Set Sail with Harlette collection has been featured in Wall St Journal, Hindustan Times, La Stampa and bollywood blogs, CNN and NDTV featuring Miss World Australia 2008 1st runner up Miss Sonia Lipski.^{[12][13][14][15]}

Images of Harlette's Secret Diary Collection has been featured in The Sun (newspaper), Buzz, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, Metro (British newspaper), and New York Post and went to air on ITV2, Showtime and GEM.^[16][17]

Images of the patented diamond suspenders and collection at Oscars style lounge 2010 worn by Miss USA 2004 Shandi Finnessey featured in Luxist ^[18]

Images of Harlette's designs have been seen in Maxim (magazine) UK worn by Hollie Dowding, Naomi Young and Miss London 2011 Rissikat Bade in November 2011^{[19] [20] [21]}

Images of Melissa Reeves Miss Galaxy England 2011 wearing Harlette's designs for her 2012 calendar have been seen in Maxim (magazine) UK in December 2011 as well as Miss England 2010/11 Jessica Linley ^{[22] [23]}

Images of Carly Everett NSW Finalist for Miss Universe Australia 2012 wearing Harlette's designs have been seen in her Daily Telegraph (Australia) article 16 April 2012 ^[24]

2012 Harlette is cited in the book Saudi Arabia on the Edge: The Uncertain Future of an American Ally, by Thomas Lippman with the historic 1st in the world 10 day lingerie course run in Saudi Arabia by Harlette for Reem Asaad in the section titled Underwear Campaign. ^[25]

Film & Television costumes

2010 Billie Piper selected with award winning costume director Edward K Gibbon Harlette’s collection and design's to take part in the fourth and final series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl by Tiger Aspect

2011 The Harlette collection is seen on Billie Piper as Belle in episodes 2,3,4,& 5 with couture pieces appearing in episodes 6 & 7on ITV and Showtime ^[26][27][28]

2011 Pieces of the collection appeared in episode 1 of Britains Next Big Thing by Maverick Television hosted by Theo Paphitis that went to air on the BBC2 in UK and ABC in Australia.^[29]

2012 Pieces of the Harlette collection were selected by stylist Simon Gensowski for V (American magazine) Valentine's Day film directed by Justin Wu shot in Paris ^[30][31]

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2011	Britains Next Big Thing	Herself	TV series (episode one)

References

External links

• "Harlette", Harlette's company.
• "Harlette", Harlette's Diamond & Platinum Lingerie Service.