Amber Tolliver has modeled for lingerie brands for 17 years, working with companies like Jockey and Aerie on various underwear campaigns. (She appeared in the latter's first-ever un-retouched #AerieReal ad back in 2014.) In the almost two decades she's spent in the industry, she's vacillated between being considered straight-size and curve. And that made a real difference, both as a consumer and as a model, in what lingerie she was able to wear.
"When I was a straight-size model, I had tons of options in terms of lingerie brands that carried my size," Tolliver says. "But as my body changed and my bust grew, the options grew to be almost nonexistent."
She recalls one instance where she had booked a modeling gig with a store that carries multiple lingerie brands. She was curve at that time and says she immediately noticed a difference between what she would be photographed in versus what the straight-size models were going to wear. "I just remember walking up to one of the racks and [saying,] 'Wow, all of this lingerie is really beautiful—it’s colorful, it’s lacy, it’s feminine.' And they said, 'Yeah, it really is, but that’s not your rack.'" Her rack, she tells Glamour, was pretty much exclusively "black, white, and nude panties and bras that came up to my clavicles. At that point, I was like, This is it—I’m not going to be a bystander."
That experience drove her to launch her own intimates brand, where size doesn't limit what product you have access to. And so Liberté was born.
At Liberté, there aren't any plain old nude undies. Instead the bras have playful mesh and lace accents, the undies have sophisticated panels, and all pieces come in several different colors. The collection feels mature but not matronly; supportive but not overly constructed. The price point is sweet too, ranging from $45 to $130.