first blush; Designer Carine Gilson brings chic elegance to a risque business.

Byline: Megan O'grady

I love silk, I love lace, I love luxe," says Carine Gilson, leading the way through her Brussels atelier, a factory of sensual pleasures to rival Willy Wonka's: Dove-gray and lapis silks puddle on the tables, a rack of diaphanous camisoles stands in one corner; flame-colored panties get their finishing stitches in another. She holds up a Merry Widow in violet charmeuse satin and wraps it around her waist. "C'est sexy, non?"

But sexy doesn't begin to describe these sumptuous underpinnings, made of silk from the same Lyon mill that supplies Hermes, and lace from family-owned weavers near Calais. Recalling the golden age of lingerie, from the Ballets Russes to the Hollywood pinup, Gilson's self-titled collection is a dream come true for anyone who has resorted to vintage, ick factor notwithstanding, to add a bit of allure to the underwear drawer.

It all began in 1990, when, as a young graduate of the renowned fashion department of the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts, she happened upon a small lace factory in her native Brussels. "Trying to be very brave, I asked the two old men who owned it to produce my designs. They said, 'You are a very nice girl, but. . . .'_" Gilson, 40, laughs. "No one understood what I wanted to do. At the time, lingerie was so utilite." And so Gilson scraped to buy the factory and spent the next four years learning to make lingerie by hand. In 1994 she produced her first collection, and upscale intimates purveyors of the world-including Barneys-took notice.

Today the atelier, which has since moved to a larger space in a former print ...