Aubade Kiss of Love

Kiss of Love is the collection I steer brides towards, though plenty of women buy into it purely for the romance of it outside a wedding context too. It's built around French Leavers lace from Calais, which is a proper marker of quality if you're not familiar with it — it's woven rather than machine-embroidered onto a base fabric, so the floral pattern has real definition and a soft, slightly raised texture rather than sitting flat. Aubade have paired it with a fine stretch crêpe made in Italy, which gives the collection its comfort against skin without losing any of the lace's delicacy.

The colourway is Opale, a soft ivory with none of the starkness of a pure bridal white, so it photographs warm and flatters against skin the way true white rarely does. The half-cup bra is designed with wedding dresses specifically in mind — the neckline sits low enough to work under a square or sweetheart cut, and it gives a subtle push-up shape without looking engineered. On the smaller pieces, the thong and Italian brief both carry the same embroidered waistband detail through to the back, and the bodysuit brings the whole look together with a plunging lace top, a high-cut crêpe leg, and a back finished in interlaced ribbon straps.

It's a genuinely special-occasion collection rather than an everyday one, but it's comfortable enough to be worn the whole day of a wedding, which is really the test of whether bridal lingerie has been designed properly.