Murielle Schelle is responsible for Belgium’s most feather-ruffling export since Guylian shaped chocolate into little shells. The glamorous madame is the creator of La Fille D'o, a lingerie line as refreshingly honest and open as its creator. With a regard for the all the various, wonderful shapes of the human body, La Fille D’o natutrally enhances the female figure by tickling the curiosity of the mind rather than the unnatural pushing up, pulling in, and pumping out lingerie more suited to the top-shelf glamour model than the everyday working girl.

Schelle’s home is the Belgian city of Ghent-- a medieval city noted for its busy port and fine architecture that plays host to Murielle’s industrious lifestyle, which has not just seen her command the rise of La Fille D’o, but also pen a couple of books [Lingerie and Lollipops and Cross Examination], co-ordinate a handful of successfully sensuous events, and gather a host of intrepid and creative like-minded females to create the ‘De Ville Harem girls’. And she's done this while still having time to fend off most of Ghent’s male population, and planning a forthcoming shoe collection.

Intrigued by Schelle, psychoPEDIA joined her on a tour of her hometown, to find out what tickles her fancy, where she goes when the passion takes hold, and whether liberalism has gone too far:

Ghent seems architecturally rooted in its history, but how would you describe it today?
We still have the castle in the city center, and De Boekentoren, a building by Henry Van de Velde; and we have cobblestone roads and one-way streets that are easy to get into but never to get out. I love Ghent’s social history, but I’m sad people have forgotten we were a working-class town. Bars tend to be posh, where they should [instead] be uniting our party creatures from the old days. We have this small community which contains super smart, creative cats, but no one seems to get along with all of them. Divided we fall, right?

Where would you take Betty Page if she were still alive today?
If she were here last year, I’d take her to a shop that’s sadly now closed called Bloch. It was a Jewish pastry place where all the decent old ladies went for afternoon tea. I loved it there! The walls were heavy with stories of whispering gossip and a past filled with rich cream and roasted almonds. She’d love it there! Then I’d take her shopping in my own store Bien Sur. She’d find her happiness there too, since most of my stuff was created with her body and attitude in mind!

Where are the most erotic spots in Ghent?
I have seen some of the more unexpected places in my town in a different light, but they could be utterly boring to someone else. To name but a few, the dead-end street towards the ice skating rink, the side of my car parked in front of my house, the little yacht harbor and then some…

What part of town you could wear your lingerie creations without encountering a raised brow?
That would be the Blaameersen! It’s a man-made pit filled with water. It’s like a poor man’s beach but it’s a super nice hang out in summer! Like the back yard of all this town’s kids, with a huge lake. And a shop that sells ice-cream! And since it carries a pretty high hippie factor, you can pretty much wear anything out there.

Most outrageous nightspots?
Vlasmarkt, Monday at 11am the last day of our famous Gentse Feesten. That is when you can meet the ghost of you and your friends. Happy ghosts, but still ghosts. It’s an event of ten days of partying, and on the last day, the drama begins. I have seen couples break up or get together or cheat or whatever and it’s all permitted. It’s the perfect excuse for a whole town or generation to come out and play-- hard.

On that note, do you think with our generation’s obsession with sex, have we forgotten about the simple pleasures in life, like a first kiss or romantic walk?
It’s no longer about the number of times you get laid. We know we are all doing it two or three times a week, but what about quality? A lot of women I know still aren’t really getting off at the sex available to them, which seems surreal considering we have all the toys and therapists we can imagine to come until we can't come anymore.

What’s your solution?
I think it should all get back to basics-- we should provide ourselves with a decent dose of serious kissing at least 3 times a day. I don’t mean Hollywood make-believe. And throwing out the toys and ghosts that haunt our heads and the how-to books on sex and just ask ourselves one question: what do I like? Forget about everything you learned that day straight after you learned it. And start anew the very next day. I just love that about sex with someone new: the discovery. Being pretentious or thinking you have seen it all is an attitude that should be banned from the bedroom. I prefer to be like a kid (again) in all this debauchery. I know nothing. I am curious. I am willing.

~Kevin Soar


First and second photos, courtesy of Murielle Schelle
Third photo by ikarus50
Fourth photo by Ange Soliel
Fifth photo by nomorecorsca
Sixth photo by patrickco
Eighth photo by redneck