We would like to formally state that Handmaid's Tale-inspired lingerie is a bad idea
We’ve seen a lot of weird, off the mark, and just plain bad product tie-ins over the years here at The A.V. Club, as our annual Year In Swag roundups can attest. (Hello, KFC turntable.) But we’d like to formally state for the record—because such a thing has become necessary—that silk lingerie sets in colors inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s disturbingly prescient dystopian sci-fi novel turned Emmy-winning Hulu series about a near-future misogynist theocracy where fertile women are forced to serve as sexual slaves, are a bad idea.
Yesterday, our sister site i09 broke the news of a new offering from luxury sleepwear company Lunya, which has named its red silk colorway “Offred” after the main character in The Handmaid’s Tale. That might seem like clever wordplay, until you remember that “Offred” is a portmanteau of “Of Fred,” the name of the man who owns our heroine, and has nothing to do with the color. And sure, the “Handmaids” who are coerced into bearing children on behalf of the infertile wives of high-ranking officials in the Republic of Gilead also wear red as a symbol of their coveted fertility, but their garments are shapeless habits designed to conceal their sinful bodies, not silk tank top-and-short sets. But if you can still feel sensual thinking about the dark implications of taking the war on women’s bodies currently being waged at all levels of government to its logical extreme while lounging at home in your PJs, good for you, we guess.
Lunya’s Washable Silk Set in “Offred” is available on the company’s website now for $178, if you must. The company, which tells i09 in an email that “We’re with the resistance!,” is reportedly planning a Handmaid’s Tale watch party at its headquarters in Santa Monica, California on April 26.